Companions
by Llandaryn
Summary: Just who are the companions of Knight-Captain Kail Farlong? Where were they born? What events shaped their pasts? And just how, exactly, did they end up helping a neurotic bard to save the Sword Coast from the legacy of Ancient Illefarn?
1. Companions Bishop I

Companions

Bishop - I

"Arran! Arran! You get here right now! Don't make me come after you!"

The four year old child ignored the cries of his father. He was cold and hungry, and quite used to begging meals off the women in the village. And where begging failed, he scavenged and stole. The village was nicer than his house, anyway. His house was empty; his father left for work on the farm early in the morning, never returning until late evening. His mother was often gone all day too, and even when she wasn't she often forgot to feed him. Sometimes she lay in bed until late, reeking of the ale that his father drank every night in ever increasing quantities.

"Got him!" a voice shouted. The child felt himself lifted by the back of his trousers, and a strong pair of hands encircled his waist. He squirmed, kicking with his feet to try and get out of the grip. Then, when his father approached, he ceased struggling, and cowered instead, holding onto his captor.

"By Chauntea's tits, boy, I told you to stay in the house when I'm working," his father said.

"He's a regular little wandering tomcat, this one," his captor said, handing him over to his father.

"Aye. Wanders almost as much as his bloody mother. Come on then, tomcat, let's get you back to the house and put something in your belly. Doubt that whore's remembered to feed you today, has she?"

He shook his head. He didn't know what a whore was, or what a tomcat was, but he knew that he hadn't eaten since his father had fed him last night.

His father carried him under one arm back to the house, slamming the door closed behind him. The child was seated on a chair whilst his Da started a fire in the hearth, warming their home for the first time all day.

"What did you do today, tomcat?" he asked.

"Went fishing with Rosie," he replied. His father grunted, which meant he was pleased.

"Catch anything?"

"No. We're going to try again tomorrow though. Rosie's brother said a monster lives in the river, and it eats children up for breakfast. We're going to look for it."

"And you would, too, wouldn't you? If there was a damn child-eating monster in that river you'd just walk right up to it, wouldn't you?"

"Rosie's not scared of it, so I'm not scared of it," said the child defensively. Before his father could reply, his mother staggered into the house. She smelt of wine and vomit, and the child wrinkled his nose at the stench.

"S'pose it's too much to ask that you have a warm dinner waiting for me after I've slaved my balls off on the farm?" said his father angrily. The child tried to make himself smaller, to shrink into the seat. He knew what was coming next.

"Maybe if you weren't such a rotten husband I'd have a reason to make your bloody dinner," she said, rubbing her head as if it hurt her. She often complained of a sore head, especially when she smelt of wine and ale a lot.

"You're a pathetic excuse for a woman and a mother. How many days have you left that boy alone here, now? And to think I was once happy to marry you."

"Shame I can't say the same. I only agreed because you knocked me up and my Pa threatened to send me off to some bloody convent. If I'd known I'd have a son who's as worthless as his father, I would have wished for a girl."

There was a loud _smack_; the first of many that night. Though the child was never beaten by his father, his mother often was. It was the same scene over and over again. His parents would argue then his father would smack his mother. Instead of shutting up, his mother screamed at his father and fought back.

His mother finally retreated, her nose bloody and her left eye black. His father turned wordlessly to the kitchen and began making food. It wasn't much; jam and goat cheese on stale bread, but it was more than he had had all day. His father had ale to wash his down with, and he gave the boy water. After their meal his father continued drinking, and the child retreated to his bedroom. It wasn't a large room, little more than a storage cupboard, really. But it was where he had slept every night for the four short years of his life. It wasn't much, but it was home.

o - o - o - o - o

"I'm going to make us crowns," said Rosie, smiling as she picked daisies in the field. "Then we can be a prince and princess. Princess Rosie and Prince Arran."

"I don't want a crown," the seven year old boy sulked, though secretly he was pleased. Rosie was the only one who still called him by his name. After his escapades in the village, the nickname 'tomcat' had stuck, and when people couldn't be bothered with it, they just shortened it to 'tom'. But not Rosie. Even when his father called him 'tomcat' and his mother called him 'you little bastard', his friend still used his real name.

"Well, you're having one," Rosie said, fiercely determined once she had made up her mind. "You can have a gold one, made out of buttercups, and I'll have a silver one, made out of daisies. Then we can get married and live in a castle and live happily ever after."

He rolled his eyes. That stuff was just in stories; there were no castles in the Mere, only farms and ruins and dead things. But he did not protest as she began measuring his head with her hands, working out how many buttercups she would need to make a crown for him. He knew that she indulged him often enough; whenever he wanted to go exploring the old ruins, she always went with him, even though it was dangerous with the lizardmen around. And whenever he wanted to go fishing, she never complained, no matter how cold the water was. So he would suffer a crown of flowers if it would make his best friend in the world happy.

"Do you think we'll really get married and live in a castle one day?" Rosie mused as the began pushing daisies through the stems of other daisies. He shrugged. From what he had seen, getting married involved lots of swearing and violence and drinking alcohol that smelt _really_ bad. He had tasted his father's ale, once - and got a half-hearted clout for it - and the stuff was revolting. He was _never_ going to drink alcohol ever again.

Things had been changing, at home. His father didn't hit his mother quite as much these days, and when he did, it was just an occasional cuff. Nothing like the beatings she had endured in the past. Obviously, his father's leniency was doing his mother some good; she was putting on weight, getting fatter. Which was strange, because he hadn't seen her eating any more than usual. Maybe she was being fed in the village, like he sometimes was. Most of the time, it seemed the women in the village fed him so that he would go away and stop staring hungrily at them as they worked in their kitchens. Not that he cared; food was food, no matter where it came from.

"Are you even listening to me?" Rosie asked, waving a hand in front of his face. "I asked if you wanted to play explorers again this afternoon and you just completely ignored me."

"Sorry. I was thinking about my Ma," he admitted. "I think she's dying. A few months ago she was being really sick all the time, and she didn't drink any ale at all. Now she's getting fatter and fatter but she doesn't really eat that much."

"You're silly," Rosie grinned, positioning a crown of yellow flowers on his head. "She's not dying, she's just pregnant. That means you're going to have a brother or sister."

"Really? I am?" Could it be true? He had always wanted a sibling. Rosie had an older brother called Peter, though he wasn't a very nice older brother. He was sure that if _he_ had a little brother or sister, he would be much better at it than Peter was.

For the rest of the morning and afternoon his mind was full of thoughts about his new brother or sister. He didn't really mind which it was. It would be nice to have a brother who he could play explorers with, but it would be nice to have a little sister, someone like Rosie who would put flowers in his hair and be nice to him when nobody else was. As night fell he returned home early for once, and began making jam and cheese on bread. It was something he had seen his father do a hundred times or more. Now that he was going to be a big brother, he needed to learn how to do these things so that he could take care of his little brother or sister when his parents were out all day.

When his father came home he seemed somewhat surprised to see his son in the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of wine and watched in silence for a few moments.

"Whatcha doing?" he asked at last.

"Making dinner," he replied. Wasn't that obvious?

"It's a woman's job, to cook. A man's place isn't in the kitchen."

"You cook all the time," he pointed out.

"Your bloody whore of a mother's practically emasculated me, that's why."

"Rosie said Ma's gonna have a baby. Am I really going to have a brother or sister?" he asked, handing one sandwich to his Da while he made another.

"Half brother or sister. I s'pose it's time I told you about the facts of life," he sighed. "Y'see, when a man and a woman want to have a baby, they have sex. I'll tell you about that when you need to start shaving. Until then, all you need to know is that it's a wonderful thing... or it _should_ be... and that the end result is a baby. That's how your Ma and I made you."

"And now you've made me a brother or sister?"

"No. Your mother is a filthy, worthless whore. When I'm out on the farm, growing food to put in that dirty mouth of hers, she goes out and has sex with other men. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, 'cos in cities there are lots of whores, and they all get paid for having sex with other men."

"Why would a woman get paid for making babies with men?"

"Ugh. Too bloody sharp, you are. Why can't you just snicker like all the other kids do when their parents mention sex? The reason, if you must know, is because most of the time, having sex doesn't make a baby. It's only occasionally that it happens, otherwise every woman would be constantly pregnant and us men would never be getting any."

"Any sex?"

"That's right. As I was saying, prostitution is one of the oldest trades around. It's fine, nothing wrong with it. But your mother isn't just a whore, she's also a stupid whore. She doesn't even ask the men she has sex with for money, so not only are we poor and starving, but you have a whore for a mother and I have a whore for a wife. Your Ma and I haven't had sex in a long time. That means that some other man will be your brother or sister's Da. Only the fucking gods know who he is... it could be just about anybody, really. And that's the sad truth of the situation. Every man in the village is happy to fuck your mother, but as soon as she's thrown out a kid you can bet they won't be pitching in _then_. Meanwhile, I'm married to the whore, I work my balls off to feed her and her children, and I'm the only one not getting anything from her."

"What are we going to call the new baby?"

"Have you even heard a word I've said, tomcat?" his father sighed.

"Yes. Ma's a whore and you're not the baby's Da, and she should at least be asking men for money for having sex with her," he said seriously.

"You're a good kid. Smart, too. You must get that from me. You certainly don't get it from your Ma. Make us another sandwich each, tomcat. I'll get another cup, and you can try some of this wine. You're old enough, now, I think. Hells, I think in your head, you're older than your fucking mother, and that's saying something."

He didn't bother telling his Da that he didn't like the wine. After a few cups, the man wouldn't notice him not drinking it. But one thing was for certain. Whether the new baby was his real brother or sister or not, he did not care. He was just looking forward to having someone else to talk to. Someone to look after. Another friend.

o - o - o - o - o

"Tag, you're it" Rosie giggled, slapping him sharply between the shoulder blades. With a mock growl he turned and chased her through the ruins, following her as she leapt nimbly over broken stone walls and ducked under half-destroyed arches. Before he could tag her, however, Peter stepped out in front of them, blocking their path. Rosie's giggles ceased under her brother's glare.

"Ma says you're to get back home right now and feed the pigs," said Peter. He planted both hands on his hips and stood straighter, making him look taller. Not that he needed to 'look' taller... at five years older than them, Peter was thirteen; practically a man.

"But I'm playing!" said Rosie, her voice petulant. "Ma said I could do the pigs this afternoon."

"Well, she changed her mind."

"I'm not going back yet."

"Oh yes you are." Peter grabbed hold of Rosie's hair and began pulling her through the ruins. Rosie screamed in pain, tears rolling down he shrieks as she screamed for Peter to stop.

"Hey! Leave her alone!" shouted the boy who only thought of himself as 'Arran' whilst he was with Rosie. He ran towards the pair and tried to pry Peter's hand open, to loosen his grasp on his friend's hair. Peter merely put the palm of his heel against his chest and pushed him over. Angry, he got to his feet and moved again towards Peter. It was enough to make him relinquish his grip on his sister.

"Well look at this," the older boy grinned. "The tomcat thinks he can fight. A regular knight in shining armour, eh?"

"I won't let you hurt Rosie!" he said, advancing slowly towards his friend.

"I wonder if she'd say the same." Peter lashed out with his fist and it connected with his cheek. Then he struck again with his other hand, hitting him in the stomach. As he doubled over in pain more blows rained down, until eventually he was on the floor, curled into a ball in a subconscious attempt to protect his face and stomach. In the background he heard Rosie screaming at Peter to stop, but her cries were dull in comparison to the pain that tore through his body.

Eventually the beating stopped, and he heard Rosie dragged away crying. As much as he wanted to move, to help his friend, he knew he couldn't. Every inch of him ached; he remembered Peter's booted foot connecting with his back a few times as he had lain helpless on the floor. Slowly, feeling every movement as exquisite agony, he uncurled his body and pushed himself to his feet. His nose was bleeding and he had to pinch it to stop the flow of blood. He cold only see out of one eye, and when he raised a hand to probe the area gently with his fingertips, he realised it was swollen shut.

It was an entirely new experience for somebody who had never felt pain like this before. Though he had gotten an occasional cuff for bad behaviour from his father, it paled in comparison to the agony he felt now. This was, he realised, how his mother felt every time that his father beat her. He had always thought that his mother was stupid and weak, for allowing his father to beat her. Now he knew that she was strong for enduring it time and time again.

The journey home was slow and painful. Had any lizardmen come along, he would have been easy prey. But the gods must have been smiling on him, for he made it home without encountering another living soul. Aching, in agony and feeling more alone and helpless than he had ever been before, he sank down onto the sofa of his family's small house.

"Where have you been?" his mother asked, coming out of her bedroom with the baby on her hip. "It doesn't matter. Here. Take the baby for me. I have to go out."

She had looked at him, seen how badly he was hurt and bleeding, then completely ignored his hurt. Not only that, but she expected him, in his condition, to take care of his sister, while she went off to spend the day in some other man's bed. His father was right; she _was_ a whore, and she deserved every beating she got.

His mother left the baby, who had been named Scarlet, on the seat beside him. Deprived of the warmth of her mother's body, the seven month old infant began to cry. Slowly, because he ached, he pulled the baby onto his knee, rocking her as soothingly as he could. Eventually her cries grew quieter, and then stopped altogether. As night crept in, the child fell asleep, and he dozed with her in his arms.

"What the bloody hell happened to you?" his father swore. He opened his eyes and saw the man standing before them in the darkness. How long had he slept for? It must have been some hours.

"Peter beat me up because I wanted him to stop hurting Rosie," he explained.

"Is that so? Well, nobody beats up my son," said his father, striding out of the house. He tried to call out, to tell his father to come back, that it didn't matter, but he couldn't shout without waking the babe. So instead he just sat in the darkness and cold, waiting for somebody to come and take his hurt away.

When his father returned, he too had a black eye, and he held one hand to his ribs as if they pained him.

"You aren't to see that girl again," he said, reaching for the wine.

"But she's my friend!" In his arms, Scarlet woke and began to cry.

"I don't give a damn if she's Chauntea incarnate. You're not seeing her again, and I'm going to make sure of it."

He knew better than to push his father. He didn't want to be beaten again. He never wanted to feel like this. It wasn't so much the pain that hurt as the feeling of helplessness. He had been helpless to protect Rosie and helpless to protect himself. If his father decided to beat him, he wouldn't be able to stop him. But perhaps, over time, his Da might forget all of this. The only thing he knew was that nobody would keep him from his friend.

o - o - o - o - o

The next morning, his father did not go to work right away as usual. Instead, he woke him during the early hours of the morning and told him to dress for a day of hard day of work.

"It's about bloody time you started contributing to this family," he said. "If you're old enough to drink my wine, you're old enough to help pay for it. I'm not having another leech like your mother."

Then he led him from the house and into the village, to one of the furthest homes. He knocked on the door and a man opened it. The boy shivered; he recognised the man, and he now recognised the house. It was one he had always avoided because of the animal skins hanging from racks outside it, their snouts and muzzles twisted into snarls of pain, their eye-sockets empty and black with dried blood.

The man and his father spoke quietly, then his father left without a backward glance. The man watched him, and the boy shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"Y' know why yer here, tomcat?" the man asked.

"Because my Da doesn't want me to play with Rosie anymore and he thinks you'll be able to keep me from seeing her."

"Ha! That what he told you?"

"No, he told me that I need to start contributing to the family."

"Yer a sharp one. The real reason yer here is 'cos yer girlfriend's Da beat up your Da, and now yer Da wants y' to learn how to look out for yerself, so that he doesn't have to get beat up because of y' again."

"It wasn't because of me. It was because of Peter."

"Well y' must've done somethin' to Peter, to make him beat y'."

"I told him to stop hurting Rosie."

"See, it's yer own damn fault. Shoulda kept yer nose outta other families' business, tomcat."

"But Rosie's my friend."

"Real man don't need any friends. Real man helps himself. I'm gonna teach y' that, as well as how to keep yerself alive. Y' know what I do?"

"No."

"I kill stuff. Track it down, hunt it, kill it. Then I skin it. Sometimes I eat what I kill, sometimes I just take the skin. You wanna be a farmer yer whole life, boy?"

"No."

"Whatcha wanna be?"

It was something no adult had ever asked him before. Nobody had ever asked what _he_ wanted. Nobody had ever asked his opinion. He knew what Rosie wanted - to live in a castle and live happily ever after - but he hadn't given a thought to his own future. Nor did he know what answer was expected of him.

"A real man?" he asked, hazarding a guess.

"Yeah, real sharp one. I'll teach y', but yer have to listen to what I say. If y' wanna be a real man, you can't go blubbing when things get tough. Yer had any breakfast?" he asked, gesturing at the table that held plates of bread and meat.

"No," he said. It was something he never usually got, unless he scrounged in the village for it.

"Real men have breakfast. A big one, with lots of dead stuff all fried up. Come on in and eat something. Then I'm gonna take y' hunting."

o - o - o - o - o

"Steady," Davram whispered. The boy did not whisper back. He did not nod, or even acknowledge the man's word. He merely kept his eyes forward, looking down the length of his bow, down the arrow that was resting on it, the flight feathers pointing outwards.

Slowly, he moved his hands, aiming just in front of the dapple hind. _Don't aim for where your target is now, or by the time you shoot it will have out-run you. Instead, aim for where it's going to be. That's the beauty of hunting. You have to observe your prey, get to know it, then you can figure out where it's going to be when you strike. Learn to put yourself in its place. Learn to observe your surroundings. Only then will you make a successful kill_.

It was something Davram had told him over and over again. They had been hunting together, master and pupil, for over a year. In that year he had learnt much. He had learnt how to move silently through the forest and the Mere. He had learnt how to distinguish tracks of animals, and even how to track people. He had quickly mastered the bow, though he had not yet killed anything as large as a deer. His usual quarry were birds, which were much harder to hit than mammals. He had learnt how to skin what he killed and cure hides. He had learnt how to roast meat on an open fire, how to stay warm in the cold, and how to survive off his wits.

In that year he had barely seen Rosie at all. Davram kept him busy from sunrise to sunset, and at nights he took care of Scarlet while his mother went out whoring and his father got drunk. His half-sister was growing fast. At almost two years old she was already walking around the house, bossing him into playing with her, and generally causing mischief. Nobody knew who her father was; her fine blonde hair and nondescript features did not bring to mind the face of any particular man in the village, for which he was glad. Their home was complicated enough without adding another adult into the mix. His father allowed Scarlet to call him 'Da', but what he truly thought of the girl, the boy did not know.

When the wind shifted and the hind lifted its head to test the breeze, he let his arrow fly. As anticipated, the deer leapt, and against any other predator that leap would have saved its life. But the predator that was known as 'man' could use its mind to anticipate its quarry's actions. When the deer jumped, it jumped into the arrow, then dropped to the ground with a heavy _thud_.

It did not die immediately. It squealed and screamed as it tried to stand, as it tried to flee. Calmly, he walked towards the creature and took out his knife, slitting its throat and quieting its cries. Then he stood back to survey his handiwork.

"Not bad," said Davram, stepping up beside him. "Y' wanna skin it?"

"Sure."

Davram handed him his skinning knife, and he knelt down beside the deer to begin work. By the time he had finished it was early afternoon, and he was covered in blood. Flies had begun to swarm and they bit at his skin, ignoring his attempts to shoo them away.

"Don't waste yer time," Davram said. "Flies are just one of the things y' can't ever get rid of. Just have to put up with 'em, and wait for 'em to leave. Bit like family, really."

"Do you have any family?" he asked. Davram rarely offered insights into his personal life, and never discussed family.

"Not anymore. I'm a free man."

He nodded, and rolled the deer skin up as Davram began cutting the meat from the bones. When he was finished, they set out back to Redfallow's Watch. When they reached the town, people stared at them walking past. It was common knowledge, by now, that Davram had taken on an apprentice, and nobody was surprised that it was him. _'A lion teaching a tomcat'_, was what they whispered to each other. But he didn't care. He could do something they could not; he could survive alone. He was no longer reliant on them.

"How about you and me go somewhere a little more private," said a voice not far away. Turning his head, he noticed the town's blacksmith standing in front of a woman. He didn't recognise her... she must be a visitor, he decided. Redfallow's Watch didn't get many of them, and they were usually merchants.

"How about you move out of my way before I turn you into a toad," said the woman, a stave held defensively in her hands.

"I don't think I like your tone of voice," said the smith. He grabbed the woman's wrist and she tried to pull away, swinging her stave at his head. The smith merely caught the stick in his other hand and wrenched it from her grip.

"Keep walking, tomcat. Ain't none of our business," Davram said. He realised that he had been drifting towards the pair, and at Davram's advice he moved away.

"Is there a problem here?" a third voice asked. It came from a man who lived in the Mere; a ranger, Davram had told him, who often made the mistake of sticking his nose where it didn't belong.

As they moved away, it seemed the ranger had diffused the situation. The smith stalked off with a stormy expression, and the woman was simpering her thanks at her rescuer.

"Y' don't need to come around tomorrow," said Davram. "I'm having a day off."

"What should I do?"

"I dunno. Whatever y' want. Go hunting. See yer girlfriend. Help yer Da. Don't matter to me."

Later that night, as he was tucking Scarlet into bed - though her 'bed' was little more than a pallet and two blankets in his tiny room - he decided what he would do. He would go and see Rosie, so that they could spend the day playing together. He would even let her make him a crown of flowers, if she wanted.

o - o - o - o - o

The next morning he woke early and made breakfast for his father and his sister. Where before it would have been a breakfast of jam sandwiches, it was now of a much better quality; fried bacon, eggs and mushrooms, with tomatoes heated in a pan so that their flesh and juice was deliciously warm. He was proud of the breakfast that he cooked, because he was the one who had provided it.

The bacon came from a boar piglet he had shot whilst hunting with Davram last week. The mushrooms he had foraged in the fields between the village and the Mere, and the eggs and tomatoes he had traded for two partridges he had shot down in mid-flight. True, his father had provided the bread and the wine, but he had contributed the rest. It felt good to be independent and successful. It felt good to know that he had worth.

"Stay here with Flash, Scarlet. I'll be back soon with Rosie," he said. Beneath the table, a collie-dog wagged its tail. He had bought the pup for Scarlet not long after Davram started teaching him. He wanted his sister to have something in her life, something that would make her less lonely than he had been whilst their parents were out all day. Now the dog watched over Scarlet like an over-protective parent... a canine parent that was much better than either of his real ones.

"Yay, Rosie!" said Scarlet, clapping her hands in glee. His sister loved his friend almost as much as he did, and Rosie loved mothering Scarlet, pretending that the child was her own.

When he was sure that Scarlet would stay and not try to follow him, he set out, leaving his bow at home. Where before he would have slunk through the town, scurrying furtively in the shadows like a true tomcat scrounging for food, he now strolled casually and confidently, his head held high.

Rosie's house was in the centre of the village, and he went around the back and stood beneath her bedroom window. He never knocked on her door, and she never knocked on his. Ever since their fathers had fought, they had both disapproved of their friendship, and tried to discourage it as much as possible. Rosie's father had become even more unapproving and suspicious since Davram had started teaching him. The trapper hardly had the cleanest reputation.

He stood on a crate below her window and peered in. Through the dirty glass he saw her sitting in front of the mirror on her dresser, brushing her long brown hair. Watching her, he smiled. She had a morning ritual that involved brushing her hair for exactly a hundred strokes. As she finished, he tapped quietly on the window, and she caught sight of him in her mirror.

As she approached, he gestured for her to come outside, to come with him. She shook her head, her face sad. Obviously her parents had other plans for her today. They probably wanted her to help out with their pigs and chickens... she had as little spare time as he did, recently. She put one hand against the glass for a moment, and he returned the gesture. Then she was called away, and she disappeared from the room.

He got down from the crate and stepped onto the main road. Now that he knew Rosie couldn't play, he would have to find something else to do. Perhaps he would go hunting, see if he could find another boar. He could even skin it, and trade the skin in the village for something nice for Scarlet. Yes, that's what he'd do.

But... he didn't have a skinning knife. Maybe Davram would lend him his. After all, the hunter was having a day off, so it wasn't like he needed the knife himself. His mind made up, he walked the familiar path to Davram's house. When he got to the front door, he heard voices from inside; low moaning, as if somebody was in pain, came from the rear of the house.

He decided not to knock. Silently, he crept around to the back of the house and fetched a large rock, carrying it to beneath the window. As he had done at Rosie's house, he stood on the object, slowly raising himself up so that he could peer over the windowsill. But instead of the fighting that he had expected to see, he found something completely different.

Davram was lying on his back naked on the bed, his eyes closed, a sheen of sweat coating his body. A woman was sat on top of him, her legs straddling his. As he watched, she moved her body backwards and forwards, her hands resting on Davram's chest. Every time she moved backwards she moaned, and Davram reached up to take her breasts in his hands. When the woman threw back her head, her hair clearing her face, he jumped down off the rock and crouched down, leaning back against the wall as his cheeks heated with anger.

_That was his mother! His mother was being a whore with Davram! Had she done this before? Was Davram Scarlet's father? How could the man do this to his father? He was supposed to be his father's friend. He was supposed to be the one person his Da could trust not to fuck his mother. Davram must be laughing right now. He must think both his father and him blind. Perhaps he would go inside, and pretend to catch them in the act. Or perhaps he could go and fetch his father. But then his father wouldn't let Davram teach him anymore, and he had learnt a _lot_ from Davram over the past year._

No. He wouldn't fetch his father. But he would speak to Davram about this tomorrow, when things were back to normal. He would ask the trapper straight up why he was fucking his worthless whore of a mother.

o - o - o - o - o

The next day they wandered through the Mere together, the tutor and his pupil. Neither of them spoke as they hunted, each with a bow in their hands. When a pheasant hen startled and took to the sky, it was the pupil who reacted first, his bow aiming towards the bird, his arrow flying straight through the air. He had practised with the bow every day, perfecting his technique even when Davram wasn't around to watch and coach.

"Yer awful quiet today, tomcat," said the older man, as he retrieved the pheasant and slit its throat so the blood drained from its body.

"I don't want you to see my Ma again," he replied, letting the feathers drop to the floor as he plucked the bird.

"Whatcha on about?"

"My Ma. I know she's a whore, and I know you were with her yesterday. I don't want you to see her again."

"What makes you think I'm gonna do anything y' want, tomcat? Yer Ma's an adult and so am I. I didn't force her to be what she is, and if it wasn't me, it woulda been some other guy who wanted a quick, strings-free roll."

Needles of anger threaded their way through his body as Davram spoke. He'd thought that his mentor had been better than the other men in the village. He'd thought Davram had been _different_. But he wasn't. He was just the same as the others.

"If you don't leave my mother alone, I'll tell my Da, and he'll come around to your house and beat you up," he said, glaring angrily at Davram.

"Don't make me laugh, tomcat. Yer Da couldn't even handle yer girlfriend's Da. Yer Da has to pick on yer Ma and beat her because he can't handle a fight against a real man. That's why he has to pick on women, 'cos he's no better than a woman himself."

The trapper's callous, mocking tone was more than he could take. What in the hells did this man know? His father was a good man. If he beat his Ma, it was because she deserved it, because she was a whore who treated him like he was worthless. Almost without thinking, he grabbed Davram's skinning knife from the man's belt and plunged it into his leg, feeling it slice through muscle. Then he pulled the knife out and jumped back as Davram took a swipe at him.

"Yer little bastard, I'm gonna hang yer up by your neck and gut yer," his mentor swore, holding his hand against his wound to try to stem the flow of blood.

"But first you'll have to catch me," he said, then ran into the Mere, his heart pounding as thoughts raced through his head.

_What have I just done? I've stabbed Davram. He's going to kill me and leave me out here. My Da will wonder why I didn't come back tonight, and Davram will lie. He'll say that I got killed while hunting. Then he'll keep fucking my mother. And what will happen to Scarlet when I'm dead? She won't have anyone but Flash to take care of her. And who'll protect Rosie from Peter? Maybe I shouldn't have said anything to Davram. Maybe I should have just let him do whatever he wanted with my Ma. Just like everyone else is._

His legs carried him down familiar paths, and he found himself inside the ruins where he had Rosie had once played, back in the days when they were free. It was only a year ago, but it felt like an eternity. Would they ever play together again?

"Come on out, tomcat. Enough's enough, eh?" Davram called. From the sound of it, he was some way outside the ruins. He probably didn't want a prolonged chase, not when he was injured. "Come back now, and we'll go home and talk this out like real men, eh?"

He slipped through the shadows from one tall column of stone to another. As he reached the safety of the pillar, he felt something zip past his head. An arrow struck the wall behind him, and fell to the floor, broken in two. He felt his blood go cold. Davram _was_ going to kill him.

Suddenly there was a snapping sound, and a scream of pain. It made goosebumps rise on his skin, and a chill run down his spine. What could have happened, to make Davram scream like that? Slowly, wary of the man trying to lure him out of his hiding place with a trick, he looked around the side of the pillar. What he saw was no trick, though. Davram was lying on the ground, his foot caught in a heavy bear trap. Obviously his mentor had forgotten that he had ever put it there.

Feeling safer now that Davram could not move, he crept forward, ignoring the trapper's screams for help and gasps of pain. When his mentor saw him, his face turned angry. But the anger was quickly smothered over, hidden behind a false smile of friendship.

"Come and help me out of this, tomcat," said Davram. In one hand he clutched at his leg, just above where the large metal trap bit savagely into it. What would have happened if his sister had wandered into that trap? It would have snapped Scarlet's tiny bones like twigs, mangling her body, smashing the life out of her.

When it was obvious he wasn't going to help, Davram's eyes went to his longbow which he had dropped not far from where he fell. He made a move for it, but was too slow, and it was kicked out of his reach.

"Y' get me out of this trap right now, tomcat, or I swear I'll skin y' and hang yer worthless hide on the rack with the animals," Davram snarled.

He was no longer impressed with the man's threats. His mentor could not move, and he didn't have the strength to free himself. Let him stay here overnight. Let him know what it felt like to be small and helpless. He would return in the morning, and then they could talk. Like real men.

o - o - o - o - o

He crouched in the bushes down the path from the ruins, watching the scene in front of him. As he had promised himself, he had returned at first light to speak to the trapper, to come to an arrangement that he would benefit from. But he had come too late; somebody else had found his mentor first. Or, rather, some_thing_ else.

Along the path, several lizardmen were cutting up Davram's corpse. Had the man died of hypothermia first, or had the lizardmen killed him? Either way, he knew what would happen next. The lizards would cut him up and take his body away in pieces for their cooking pot. Lizardmen ate people. Everybody knew that.

He quietly moved away before the lizardmen became aware of him. And as he walked down the path back to the village, he wondered if this was his fault. But he hadn't forced Davram to set the trap, had he? He hadn't forced his mentor to screw his mother. He hadn't forced the man to chase him through the ruins, nor shoot at him with his bow. Davram had gotten what he deserved. The hunter had become the hunted, the trapper had become the trapped. There was a sense of irony to it that was not lost on him.

What would the others say if they found out what he'd done? What would they do? He would have to lie. He'd have to tell them... tell them... well, something believable. Walking back to the village, he worked on his cover story.

When he reached Davram's house, he entered it and looked around. This was his, now. All of it. The house, the tools, the food. He walked through the house, making note of everything inside it. It was larger than his family's home. It had two large bedrooms and the furniture was nicer than anything his father had made. The kitchen wasn't large but it was adequate, at least for his needs. He spent the rest of the day rearranging things to his own liking. He chose the smaller bedroom to sleep in; he didn't want to lie in the bed where his mother had heaped further shame onto his father.

When night began to creep into the Mere, he left the house and made his way back to his family's home. To his surprise, his father was already there, watching Scarlet play with Flash in front of the fire.

"You're home early," his father remarked. "Thought Davram would've kept you out late, after your day off."

"Davram is gone," he said slowly.

"Gone? What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"He said that he had to go, that he had some business to take care of. I asked him what it was but he said it was none of my damn business, and if I knew what was good for me I'd keep my mouth shut."

"Huh. Well, he say when he'd be back?"

"No. He said it wasn't any of my business and to keep my nose out of it."

"Bloody pain in the ass, that man. I was hoping he'd get some skins for me. We'll be needing some for your sister, come winter. She's getting too big for her clothes."

"I'll get them," he said at once.

"What, you?"

"Davram said that I had to keep practicing while he's gone. He said if he gets back and I've let my skills go rusty, he'll skin me himself for wasting his time."

"Sounds about right. Well, I hope he gets back soon."

"He said that I have to keep an eye on his house, too. He's afraid that someone will go sneaking into it and touching his things if he leaves it alone for too long. But he said I can use his hunting equipment and stuff, as long as I keep practicing."

"Don't go slacking off because Davram's gone for a while," his father warned.

He merely nodded in reply, whilst his insides warmed with glee. His father didn't suspect a thing! Everything was going to work out fine.

o - o - o - o - o

"Here you go, kitten." He put a plate of food on the table in front of Scarlet.

"Fanks!" She gave him a grin that showed a missing tooth in the front of her mouth. Her first lost baby-tooth, and she had only just turned five. She was growing fast, but he didn't mind.

The past two years had not been the easiest of his life. His father had started drinking more and more, starting from the moment he got home and finishing as he stumbled late into bed. His mother hardly ever came home, and he only briefly wondered where she slept. Probably in the barns and sheds belonging to the men she whored herself out to. No doubt the men hid her from their wives for their own protection, rather than hers.

As the months had past he had spent more and more time in Davram's house, until he now lived there almost permanently. A few months ago he had moved Scarlet in with him, but neither of his parents seemed to care. If anybody thought it inappropriate that a twelve year old boy should live alone with his little sister, nobody said anything to his face. In truth, he did not consider himself a child anymore, and hadn't done since Davram's death. The only time he ever felt like a child was when he was with Rosie. Only then did he lower the guard that kept people at bay. Only then did he forget about hunting, tracking and killing, and allow himself precious time for laughter and play. With Rosie, he could be himself.

There was a knock on the door, and he opened it to find his friend standing there. She, too, had matured over the years, though in a different way. Where his changes had been mental and emotional, and he had grown up on the inside, her changes had been physical, and she had grown on the outside. Though she was the same age as him, she had the body of a girl beginning to blossom into womanhood. Other boys in Redfallows Watch looked at her differently now, but he never did. On the inside, in her mind, he knew that she was still a girl. She still made crowns of flowers so they could be a prince and princess, and she still wanted to find a castle and live happily ever after.

"My Ma gave me the morning off. Wanna go play in the ruins?" she grinned.

"Sure, after kitten's had her breakfast." He held the door open for her, so that she could enter.

"Rosie!" said Scarlet, catching sight of her.

"Hey kitten, whatcha eating there?" Rosie asked, slipping onto the stool opposite his sister.

"Taters an' mushrooms an' ham and tomtoes!" Scarlet replied, holding up her fork to display a small red fruit.

"Tomatoes," he corrected, and she stuck her tongue out at him. "Eat up, kitten. We're going out to play today."

"Can Flash come too?" she asked. Beneath the table, the dog wagged its tail.

"Of course he can!" said Rosie, answering for him. "Flash is such a good boy!" She coo'd at the dog and he curled his tail between his legs, licking her fingers and generally fawning at the attention.

When Scarlet was done with breakfast they all left the house, and he led them to the trail that went out to the ruins. His sister knew the way by now, and she skipped ahead with Flash at her heels. In the trees above, birds sang their morning songs as they hunted for insects and beetles to feed their screaming chicks. Though it was high summer, he knew that winter was only around the next corner. He had a lot to do, before then.

He needed to hunt, to stock up on skins and meat that he could freeze and trade. He had to make new clothes for both himself and Scarlet, or at least trade for clothes that would fit. He needed to make new arrows, but that was something he could do with his eyes closed, these days. And he often did, shaping the body from wood as he sat by the fire and watch Scarlet playing with Flash. His sister loved searching for feathers for him, which he used for the arrow flights. Only if he wanted tipped arrows did he have to deal with others; the smith made iron arrow-heads, but normally he just sharpened the point of the wood. It was enough to kill a deer with, and that was all he needed.

When they reached the ruins, there was no sign of the old trap, no sign of Davram's remains. The lizardmen had taken care of the latter, and he himself had taken the trap away and disposed of it in a deeper part of the Mere. He had spent the better part of a whole week traversing the Mere, seeking out the metal traps that Davram had set. When he found them, he sprung them, so that any children playing nearby, like Scarlet, wouldn't be hurt by them.

His sister immediately ran into the ruins, chased by her dog. He sat on dry ground not far away, within earshot of her, while Rosie began picking wildflowers. Eventually his friend came and sat beside him, her arms overflowing with vibrant colours.

"What sort of crown do you want today?" she asked, sorting through the flowers.

"I dunno. Whatever you think is best," he shrugged.

"Isn't it strange how Davram never came back?" she asked as she worked.

"Yeah. I didn't think he'd be gone for this long. I hope he's alright, wherever he is."

They sat in silence for a while, the bird's morning chorus broken only by Scarlet's laughter, and the playful barks of Flash.

"Here, I've made a crown of lots of flowers for you," said Rosie, holding it up for him to examine. He recognised buttercups and daisies, bluebells and small orchids, all carefully interwoven together. He lowered his head and allowed him to place it carefully over his hair.

"What about you, Princess Rosie?" he asked.

"Don't worry, mine will have even more flowers in it than yours," she said. "Remember that time we were playing out here and Peter tried to take me back, and then he beat you up for trying to stop him?"

"Yeah." It wasn't a fond memory.

"Now he's scared of you," she grinned. "He said you always look at him like you're thinking of killing him."

"Only if you wanted me to," he said, only half joking. He was quite capable, physically, of killing a person who was bigger and older than him. His bow gave him that advantage.

When his sister tired of playing, and Rosie had completed a crown for 'Princess Scarlet', they wandered down to the riverbank to pick blackberries that grew beside the water. Then they tried their hands at tickling fish, trying to sneak up behind them and fish them out of the river with their fingers. They didn't catch anything, but Scarlet loved it.

A growl from Flash made him look up, and he saw two men approaching them cautiously. He didn't recognise them, and they were dressed outlandishly in dark leathers. They both had long dark hair, and one of them was unshaven. Something about the way they moved, about the way they watched Scarlet and Rosie, made him move defensively between the men and his friend, who had also seen the strangers and was edging his sister away from them.

"Hey there, kids," said one of the men, his hands out in front of him in plain sight. "We're a bit lost. Can you tell us how to get to the nearest village?"

When he moved slowly towards his bow, lying away from the river to prevent the string getting wet, the other man began to move towards it too, without actually looking at it. Deciding he needed to act fast, he lunged for his bow, but the man got there before him. Rosie screamed as the man who had spoken moved towards her and Scarlet.

"Rosie, run!" he shouted. He grabbed a rock from the river bank and threw it at the man who was moving towards them. It hit his arm and he turned angrily. Picking up another rock, he threw it even harder, and saw Rosie run, dragging Scarlet behind her.

"Flash!" Rosie shouted back at the barking dog. The hound barked twice more, then ran after the girls. Even as they ran, he could hear Scarlet screaming for him. But he didn't stop throwing rocks until he was grabbed from behind by the man who had taken his bow. Then he kicked out, striking the man's legs several times. He was dropped as his captor swore, but he didn't run after his friend. If he ran, they might catch them. He had to keep their attackers busy long enough for Rosie and Scarlet to escape.

He picked up more rocks and threw them as fast as he could, not even aiming for vital areas. It didn't take long for the men to back off, and he thought he had won. Then one of them took a small reed from a pouch attached to his belt, and loaded something into it. When the man put it to his lips and blew into it, he felt something sharp sting his neck, like a mosquito biting deep. He pulled a tiny dart away from his skin with his fingers, and looked at it briefly. After seconds, his vision began to blur, and his fingers dropped the dart as his body dropped to the ground.


	2. Companions Bishop 2

Companions

Bishop - II

"This was all you got?" said a rough male voice in an accusatory tone.

"We tried to get two more, but this one fought like a devil, and they got away."

He could not see the men who were speaking, nor did he know who they were. He had been taken somewhere on horseback, tied over a saddle for days. On the occasions where he had woken and become almost lucid, he had been quickly drugged again. All he remembered were fleeting glimpses of campfires and horses' legs, and the land beginning to change as he was taken from the Mere.

Though he was afraid, he was also pleased to hear the man's words. Rosie and Scarlet had gotten away. They had not been captured. That made his sacrifice worth it. Whatever happened to him now, it was worth the price.

"Let's have a look at him, then," said the first voice.

The veil of darkness was lifted from his eyes, a black hood removed from his head. His captors were men, both dressed in dark leathers, both with a variety of scars across their faces and arms. One of them, the man who had first spoken, peered down at him, studying him closely. He spat at the man, who merely laughed as he stepped back to wipe his face.

"Got some spirit in you, haven't you, boy?" he said. But he got no response. Whoever these men were, they would get nothing from him. "What's your name, boy?"

When he didn't answer, the second man back-handed him casually across his face. His cheek stung for a moment, but he ignored the pain. Compared to the beating that Peter had once given him, this was nothing.

"Speak when spoken to!" the second man ordered.

"What's your name?" the first asked again. And again, he was met with silence. "Did he say anything, on the trip here?"

"Not a bloody word."

"No screaming for his mother, no begging to be let go?"

"Not a thing."

"Don't you want to go home, boy? Don't you want to see your mother again?"

Of course he didn't. His mother was a whore, and didn't care for him in the slightest. Why would he want to see her again? The world would be better off without her. The only good thing she had ever done was bring him and Scarlet into the world.

"Want me to rough him up a bit for you?" the second man asked.

"No. Leave him for tonight. In the morning, we'll let Marcin work his magic."

The men left, and he was finally able to look at his surroundings. He was tied to a chair, his arms lashed down to the arms of the chair and his legs bound to the legs of the chair itself. The rest of the room was anything but bare. Dozens of strange devices lined the walls, and he couldn't even begin to fathom their purpose. One or two of them looked vaguely familiar, like the tools Davram had used for killing and skinning. But the rest were beyond his comprehension; cold, glinting metal things, twisted and gleaming in the dim candlelight.

There was no bed, in this room, but there was a table made of metal. There were no other chairs, and neither were there any windows. Apart from the candles, the room was dark.

He was left for an indeterminate amount of time. It could have been hours or days for all he knew. His hunger and thirst intensified, and he began to wonder if his captors had forgotten about him. The candles eventually melted down, and he was plunged into darkness so complete that he couldn't even tell when his eyes were closed.

Alone in the cold, dark room, with only his hunger and thirst for company, he let his mind wander to keep himself sane. He fell into a half-dream of home. In his mind he saw himself playing with Rosie and Scarlet. He saw them playing in the fields without a care in the world. He saw Scarlet playing with Flash as a puppy, and relived the two of the growing up and becoming inseparable.

When at last the door to the room was opened, admitting light that forced him to narrow his eyes or be blinded by it, his hunger and thirst had made him weak, and he felt feverish. More candles were brought into the room, enough to illuminate it fully. Several large ones were placed into sconces on the walls, and the cold glittering instruments on the walls lit up once again.

A man entered the room, bringing with him a chair. He wasn't a large man, like Redfallows' smith, but he was tall, and his calm demeanor, quite at odds with that of the first two men, was immediately menacing. The man placed the chair on the floor in front of him, then sat in it and merely watched him.

"He studied the man, as the man studied him," said the stranger. "A million thoughts went through his mind. Who was this man? What did his captors want with him? Where had they brought him? When would they feed him?"

He narrowed his eyes at the man. Unlike the first two men he had seen, this man was not dressed in black leathers; he wore white. A white shirt, white trousers, a white apron. Only his shoes were black.

"You're probably wondering about the colour," said the man, with a small smile. "It's so that you can see your blood on my clothes. Black hides blood all too well. If you can't see it, how will you know how much you've lost? And make no mistake, you will be losing blood. But how much you lose depends entirely on you. Now, I'm told you won't talk?" He said nothing. "Why don't we start at the beginning? My name is Marcin. What is yours?"

When he was met with silence, the man sighed. He went to the door and gestured at something outside. A table on wheels was brought in, rattling noisily as it was rolled into the room. On top of the table was a plate of food and a pitcher of water, and his stomach rumbled hungrily at the sight of it. Beside the plate were more shiny utensils. The bearer of the wheeled table left, closing the door behind him.

"This is how we're going to do things," the man said, pouring water into a beaker. He took a sip of it, swilling it around in his mouth before swallowing. "I'm going to ask you questions. If you don't answer, I will hurt you. If I think you're lying, I will hurt you. If you answer truthfully, I will give you food and water. Personally, I hope that you will make this difficult for yourself, that you won't answer or that you will lie. Not because I am sadistic and enjoy hurting people, but because you will learn so much _more_ once you have been through torture yourself. Are we clear?"

"Why are you doing this?" he asked at last. It came out as a croak from his parched throat.

"I'm glad to see you have a voice. As for why... that is an answer for later. Let me ask the questions for now. What is your name?"

When he didn't reply, the man stood and took something from the table. It was a length of black cloth with a chain on either end. When Marcin approached, his whole body tensed, and he tried desperately to move his arms and legs despite the way the rope bit into his skin. Marcin put the strip of black material across his forehead, pulled his head back, and clipped the chains to something on the back of the chair. When the man moved away he found he couldn't even move his head.

"What is your name?" Marcin asked. Again he didn't reply, and his antagonist picked up a knife from the table. It looked wickedly sharp. "Normally I would start by breaking your fingers," said Marcin casually. "But they tell me you had a bow, and you wouldn't be able to shoot it with broken fingers, would you? Besides, I get the feeling that they want you for delicate tasks that will require your full control of your limbs and digits. This naturally limits what I can do with you, but there are still many ways in which I can cause you pain."

Using the knife, Marcin cut open his shirt, exposing his chest. Then he lowered the blade to his skin, applying pressure and cutting a line into it. Even when he cried out in pain, Marcin did not stop until the long, shallow cut had been complete.

"What is your name?" Marcin asked again. When no response was forthcoming, he cut again, then asked the question again. As Marcin leant in to make the seventh cut, he could bear the hurting no longer.

"My name's Davram," he said, panting in fear and pain.

"I don't believe you," said Marcin, cutting into his skin again.

"Argh! It's Arran, it's Arran!" he cried.

"I still don't believe you." Marcin cut again.

"I swear it! I swear to any god you want!"

"Now I believe you," Marcin smiled. "Here, drink some of this water." The man held up the cup and he gulped down the water, ignoring the way it ran over his chin. Water had never tasted so good before. "Good. Now, eat this." A piece of apple was put into his mouth and he swallowed it almost without chewing. "Tell me your name again."

"Arran," he replied, taking a deep breath. The water and fruit had only slackened his hunger and thirst, not removed it entirely.

"That isn't your name anymore," said Marcin. "Let's see... a name that is suitable for you. Hmm... I once had a dog called Bishop. That will be your name, from now on. You will have the same name as my faithful hound, and that is what you will become. Now tell me... what is your name?"

"Arran," he said defiantly. It _was_ his name, even if Rosie was the only one who ever used it. He would remain _Arran_ for her. Everyone else called him 'tomcat', and that was what they saw, and what they got. Giving up on being Arran would be giving up on Rosie. He would never do that. Never.

"I can see," said Marcin with a sigh, "that this is going to be a long day."

o - o - o - o - o

By the time he was dragged limp and bleeding from the room, he hadn't been given any more food or water. They hadn't even made it past Marcin's first question; 'what is your name'?

"My name's Arran," he mumbled as two men dragged him along a dark corridor. He didn't think of fighting back. He knew it was beyond his capability. After he had run out of places to cut, Marcin has begun hammering slivers of wood beneath his finger and toe nails. It had been agony, and he knew that he had screamed until his throat was raw, but he didn't care. When he could no longer tell Marcin that his name was Arran, he simply thought it in his head.

His captors stopped by a door, opened it, and took him inside. There were two beds, foot-to-foot, along one wall, and a table with two chairs against the other. A boy was sitting quietly on the bed closest to the door, and the men dragged him to the second, dumping him onto it.

"New boy," one of them said to the child on the bed. Then they left. The boy stood and approached him warily; not that it was warranted. He doubted he could move even if he wanted to.

"You're in a pretty bad way," said the boy, his face a little pale. "Gods, your nails!"

"My name's Arran," he croaked.

"I doubt it," said the boy with a skeptical glance. He sat down on one of the chairs beside the table. "Why didn't you just answer their questions, give them the name they gave you? Alright, no need to glare. You probably hate them right now. The Luskans, I mean."

"Luskans?"

"Yeah, they didn't tell you? You're in Luskan now."

"What do they want with me?"

"Only the gods know. I've been here for weeks. At first I was like you. I fought them. But then I realised it was pointless, so I stopped fighting. It's not so bad here, when you stop fighting. They feed you plenty and give you clothes, and twice a day you're allowed outside. Under supervision, of course."

"What's your name?"

"Baker."

"What's your _real_ name?"

"Baker," said the boy, a worried look on his face. "I think it's supposed to be a joke. My father was a fisherman."

"In Luskan?"

"No, I'm from Waterdeep. You're not from Luskan either, are you? I can tell by your accent."

"I'm from Redfallows Watch, in the Mere of Dead Men."

"That... doesn't sound very nice."

"Why did they take us?"

"Like I said, I don't know. But I heard some bits and pieces from the guards. I think there's not many kids left in Luskan. At least, not many free ones. The way I hear it, most have been conscripted into the armies for the Lords."

"Lords?"

"Yeah, the Pirate Lords. They control Luskan, and they're always fighting against each other. Whatever these guys want us for, I get the feeling that they're having to look further afield for their victims."

"How long until they come for me?"

"Well, if they brought you, that means it's night. They won't be back until morning."

"They didn't lock the door."

"They don't need to. There's guards in the corridor, and dogs. Plus, I know better than to try to leave, and you're in no fit state to try anything. So... what name did they give you?"

"My name is Arran," he glared. The boy simply held up his hands and returned to his own bed.

Lying on the bed, he saw his blood staining the white sheets beneath him. Marcin had been right; there _was_ a lot of blood to be seen. It had been all over Marcin, and all over the floor. Now he couldn't even move, to roll away from the blood that was slowly leaking from him.

There had to be a way to beat these men at their own game. In his experience, adults weren't too bright. They could be easily fooled, easily manipulated. How could he beat them?

_Don't aim for where your target is now, or by the time you shoot it will have out-run you. Instead, aim for where it's going to be. That's the beauty of hunting. You have to observe your prey, get to know it, then you can figure out where it's going to be when you strike. Learn to put yourself in its place. Learn to observe your surroundings. Only then will you make a successful kill_.

He remembered Davram's words as if they had been spoken yesterday. Yes, perhaps that was the way to beat these people. He had to learn about them. He had to know them. He had to think like them. He would let them think him beaten. They would let down their guard. As soon as that happened, he would be ready to take advantage of their mistakes.

As he drifted to sleep, he smiled. Tomorrow he would begin his plan.

o - o - o - o - o

"Should we try again?" asked Marcin. They were back in the room. The table was beside him, with its food and water and its horrible shiny utensils. "What is your name?"

"Bishop," he said calmly.

"I don't believe you." He reached for one of the knives.

"But... it's what you told me to say! It's my name now!"

"Oh, I know it's what I told you to say. And I know you're saying it now because you think that once I hear what I want to hear, I will go easy on you and believe you cowed into submission. What you don't know is that somebody who has truly been broken will never look you calmly in the eye and tell you what you want to hear. I don't want you to tell me that your name is Bishop. I want you to _believe_ that your name is Bishop. Make me believe that you believe it, and then we will talk about other things."

When he was dragged back to the bedroom at the end of the day, he was hurting in entirely new ways. Halfway into the 'session', Marcin had called for a mage. If anything, the mage had been even more soulless than Marcin; he did things with spells, with fire and electricity, that burned his flesh until he passed out. Then a priest had been sent in to heal his injuries and revive him before the torture started again. And at the end of the day, Marcin still didn't believe that he believed.

"I can't believe you're still alive!" said Baker, once the men had left them alone. "I thought for sure they'd kill you, or that you'd die from the pain."

He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He was too weak to move and barely had the strength to keep his eyes open. Apart from a few gulps of water the previous day, he had been without liquid for what felt like an eternity. Would Marcin give him water tomorrow? Or would he simply let him die of dehydration?

It wasn't something he was willing to try and find out. As he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, he repeated a mantra to himself. _My name is Bishop. My name is Bishop. My name is Bishop._

o - o - o - o - o

When he was taken back to the room the next day, he wasn't tied down. When Marcin entered he carried the tray of food, water and sharp things himself, and placed them on the metal table at the far end of the room. In his other hand he held only a thin plank of wood. Nothing sharp, nothing fiery, nothing that crackled with electricity. Just wood.

"Today is going to be different," said Marcin. "I'm not going to torture you for answers. If I keep doing that, you'll never live. Today you can eat and drink without having to answer a single thing."

"What's the catch?" he asked, sure that there would be one.

"I am between you and your food. If you wish to eat and drink, you must get past me."

It sounded suspiciously easy. Marcin had no knife, no sword, nothing that could make him bleed. He would take a couple of hits, if it meant eating and drinking.

Slowly, because he was weak, he pushed himself out of the chair, wobbling slightly as he stood. Then he took a step foward, and Marcin swung the plank, hitting him across the back of one knee. He cried as his knee gave way, and sank to the floor.

"Get up. Try again," Marcin ordered.

He did, standing shakily and taking another step foward. This time the plank was brought down on his shoulder, sending a searing pain down his arm. On his next step the wood impacted his lower back, and he fell again to the floor. When he finally managed to push himself up, Marcin swung the wood at his stomach, winding him. He eventually caught his breath and stepped again, now half way to the table. The plank came down harshly on the side of his face, and his vision blurred, the room spinning. He barely even noticed when he fell to the floor.

"Get up," said Marcin. When he didn't move, the man hit him in the side with the wood, then rained down blows over his entire body. He curled up into a ball as blow after blow fell on him, pounding his skin, causing pain to rip through his entire body. He knew that he was crying, but he didn't care. This was too much. The pain on top of starvation and thirst was too much for him to bear. He lay on the floor, crying, and he gave up.

Eventually the blows stopped, and the only thing that could he heard was his own sobbing as he lay defeated in the foetal position.

"What is your name?" said Marcin.

"Bi... Bishop," he managed to say between sobs.

"Good boy. Now you can have some food and water."

He was too sore and exhausted to fight the hands that gently lifted his head and poured water into his mouth. At first he wasn't even able to swallow, merely coughed it up. But eventually his body's reflexes started working again and he drank from the cup. Soft meat and cheese was fed to him, along with soft fruits such as tomatoes and pears, and then he was given another drink.

Marcin went to the door and called in two guards, who hauled him to his feet as his body protested in agony.

"Take him back to his room," he said to them. Then he turned to him. "I won't be seeing you again for a while, Bishop. When I do, you'll be on the other end of the blade."

He did not get chance to respond, or even wonder what it meant. The guards all but carried him back to the bedroom and left him again on the bed with nobody but Baker for company.

"So, you passed," the other boy said.

"Passed?"

"Yeah, whatever they did to you, you passed. They broke you. I'm glad, though. The two they brought in before you never came back. Guess they just couldn't be broken. I'm glad I won't have to be alone anymore. What's your name, by the way?"

"Bishop," he said automatically. The name had replaced all other names in his memory. It was the name his father called him, the name Davram called him, and the name Rosie called him. He had never been anybody but Bishop.

o - o - o - o - o

He spent some days recovering from his ordeal. As he nursed his wounds he nursed his hatred of the ones who had done this to him, the Luskans who had brought him here and tortured his body and broken his spirit. Eventually, his hatred became more real than anything else. It was more real than the hunger, than the pain, and it kept him going.

As Baker had said, he was fed three times a day and given clean clothes. When he was healed enough to move around without experiencing pain, he was allowed outside with Baker, and they were take to an enclosed area where several other boys milled around. There were as many guards as boys, and none of them ever tried to escape. Bishop considered it, but he knew that until he had some idea of where he was, until his body was once again in a fit state, it would be foolish to try. So he would just bide his time, would wait and learn all he could about this place and its people.

One day, something different happened. He and Baker were not led out to the enclosure; instead, they were led to a room with twelve tables in it. Several of the boys from the yard were already seated at tables, and he and his roommate were taken to two and told to be seated. More boys were led inside in pairs, until all of the tables were occupied.

A man came into the room, and Bishop recognised him immediately. It was the man who had first spoken to him when the cloth had been removed from his head. The man he had spit on. But there was no recognition of him in the man's eyes. It was almost as if that night had never even happened.

"My name is Sotek," said the man, standing at the front of the room. "I am one of the Circle of Blades. I, and the other members of the Circle, are going to teach you to become one of us. We're going to teach you to track, and hunt, and kill."

Bishop could have laughed. _This_ was what his whole ordeal had been about? They had tortured him into compliance simply because they wanted him to do what he'd been doing for the past three years?

"Here is what you need to know about the Circle; we are assassins. We work in the best interests of Luskan, but those best interests are often entirely dependent upon who is hiring our services. Sometimes we work for the High Captains of Luskan, sometimes we work for the Arcane Brotherhood, and sometimes we are contracted out by private individuals. But no matter who we work for, we are working for Luskan. We _are_ Luskan, as are you.

"Three of you here today were born and raised in Luskan. Don't think that just because you were born here, we'll go easy on you. We won't. The Circle do not play favourites, and you will be under just as much scrutiny as your fellow students, if not more. We encourage questions, as long as they are relevant. Does anybody have any questions now? No? Good. Life in the Circle is not easy. Pain will be your punishment for failure, and pleasure your reward for success. When you are fully fledged members of the Circle, you will have what most men can only dream of; power, respect and strength."

One of the boys raised his hand.

"You have a question?" Sotek asked.

"Do you... do you mean the sort of power that the Brotherhood have?" the boy asked.

"Not that much," Sotek smiled. "We are not mages, and we are not leaders. We are the hand that wields the hidden blade, the knife that strikes from the shadows. The power you have will be more... succinct, than any wizard with his flashy magic can comprehend. Now, who can tell me five ways that you can kill a man?"

Hands went up around the room. Sotek pointed to one of the boys.

"By stabbing him with a sword."

"Yes. You?" he pointed to another boy.

"Strangulation."

"Good. You?"

"By nagging him. My dad said my mum was gonna nag him to death one of these days," said a boy who couldn't have been a day over eight. Sotek let out a wry chuckle.

"Yes, well, say that around some of the women in the Circle and see how far it gets you. What about you? What's your name?" he asked, stopping beside Bishop.

"My name is Bishop," he said without hesitation.

"Can _you_ think of a way to kill a man, Bishop?"

"Poison," he said, thinking of the dangerous stuff that Davram had kept in the basement of his house. Scarlet had found it and thought it was sugar; he had only just been in time to stop her from eating it.

"Very good. Poison is the answer I was looking for, and poison is what we're studying first. The other ways to kill a man are by arrow or bolt, and by magic. Obviously, we don't use magic ourselves, but we do sometimes use magical items. Swords, or more accurately, bladed weapons which include knives and swords, we will cover later in your training. Bows and crossbows will be covered after that. Strangulation will be covered when you study anatomy and physiology. There is so much to teach you, and it will be a long time before you become perfect killers. Some of you may not make it that far. For those who do, the rewards will be endless. So. Let's talk about poisons."

o - o - o - o - o

"Come on, Bishop," said Baker, all but bouncing on the spot. "We're going to be late."

"Late for what?"

"I told you, for the best show of your life."

"It must be a bloody fantastic show, to get you this excited," Bishop grunted, but allowed his roommate to hurry him out of their door. The room they shared was bigger than their first room had been, and it had better furnishings. The Circle, as promised, were generous to their survivors. So far, only nine of the twelve had survived. One from Luskan and two from towns somewhere south of Neverwinter, along the Sword Coast, had died during their training.

"Have I ever lied to you before?"

"I haven't caught you in any lies. That doesn't mean you haven't lied. Where are we going, anyway?"

"To the Golden Cherry. You've heard of it, right?"

"Sure. I hear people mention it all the time."

"Do you know why?"

"Because it's a whore-house full of cheap whores?"

"Exactly! Valon took me there two weeks ago and I've just been _itching_ to introduce you to a cute little thing called Ginger."

"I can hardly wait," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, come on, Bishop. You're what... fifteen? And you're trying to tell me that you have absolutely no interest whatsoever in sampling the finer parts of the female body?"

"They're whores. My mother was a whore. It's kinda put a whole negative connotation in my mind."

"We're in Luskan, pal. We're not going to find anything _but_ whores."

Baker opened the front door of the house and led Bishop out into the street. The Circle did not mind its students coming and going. In fact, it _preferred_ it. The way they saw it, you couldn't create the perfect assassin and then have him standing around like a lost duckling the moment he stepped out of training. No, their assassins had to be street-wise. They had to know who lurked in the shadows. They had to know what sort of women you could expect to meet and rob you blind. They had to know their way around towns and cities, and how to blend into them if necessary.

Plus, the Circle had a list of 'approved' establishments that its students could visit. Going to and from the various establishments was permitted, but anybody who stepped onto the wrong street was considered a deserter and dealt with quite terminally. The Circle kept a _very_ close watch on its students.

It was nightfall, and the dark, shady characters were leaving the streets, making way for people even worse than them. That included Bishop and Baker. In the streets of Luskan, very few people could walk safely. Children were snatched up and conscripted into private armies if left alone for any amount of time. Merchants either hired bodyguards or they were robbed of their wares. The only women who were relatively safe were whores, because whores came ten to the dozen, whereas women who weren't were rare things, jewels amongst filth and therefore all the more desirable to people who could not afford them.

Assassins, and assassins-in-training, were amongst the elite few who did not have to worry about having their throats cut in the dark. Well, not from the sane people, at least. There were plenty of lunatics and madmen, most of them made that way as a result of experimentation by the Arcane Brotherhood, who were more than willing to try their hand at robbing a man no matter how well armed he was.

The Golden Cherry was a place Bishop had never been before. The Circle only let their assassins roam freely once they turned fifteen. At that point they were too old to be likely targets for Pirate Lords looking for just another conscription. The kid who had mentioned his Ma nagging his Da to death on their very first day of class was now eleven - he would have to wait a few years before sampling the delights of The Golden Cherry.

Despite his initial reservations, he was curious about the place. It was, apparently, one of the best known brothels in the city, and one of the few that members of the Circle patronised. Assassins had to be discreet, and they had to make sure the whores they bedded were discreet. The Cherry was known as a place of discretion, where the women would not talk about the men who hired them, either to other men or to each other. Not that they had much of a choice; the owner of the Cherry was a man who had once been a member of the Circle, before he had gone half deaf and blind with age and retired to provide a valuable service to the community instead.

Baker stopped him outside a door. From inside the building, Bishop could hear slow music with a steady beat. There was laughter from within, and the lights were on in all of the windows he could see. Obviously, business was going well for The Golden Cherry.

"How do I look?" asked Baker, slicking back his blond hair with his hands.

"Like someone who's trying to impress a whore."

"Not just any whore; Poppy. You'll understand when you see her."

"I thought I was supposed to be enamoured with Ginger?"

"Be enamoured with whoever you want. If you prefer Poppy, you can have her. There's always tomorrow, after all."

"I'm not going to barter over women I haven't met."

"Right. Let's go in. Let me do all the talking."

"Right. Because I might get nervous and embarrass myself." His dry wit was lost on Baker, who merely opened the door and entered.

The Golden Cherry looked on the inside as it sounded on the outside. Immediately beside the door were two huge men who looked like they had been put there to stop a herd of stampeding horses. And they probably could. After being briefly looked over by the men, he followed Baker through into the main area. There was a bar at one side of the room and several booths that were partially screened off. In the centre of every booth was a pole coming down from the ceiling to the floor, and girls danced around the poles, most of them clad in dresses that left nothing to the imagination.

Baker led him to an empty booth and gave him a maniacal grin. This was obviously his idea of where good people went when they died.

"What can I get you boys?" asked a woman as she approached from the bar. Like the dancers, she was wearing very little, and her hair was arranged into some sort of intricate style that looked like it was about to fall off her head at any moment.

"Poppy and Ginger," Baker said immediately. "And two ales."

"Right you are, honey." The woman wandered off.

"I don't think her hair was real," Bishop remarked to his friend.

"She had hair?" Baker asked, his eyes most emphatically _not_ on the woman's hair.

"We're not the only ones from the Circle here tonight. You'd have spotted that, if you weren't drooling into your lap."

"Psht, ignore the others," said Baker dismissively.

"I think I can see Sotek over there."

"Really?" Baker craned his neck around the booth. "What's he drinking? Might be worth trying. Hey, that's not Sotek."

"Just checking if you were paying attention."

"Did someone order two ales?" asked a young woman with glossy brown hair. She held a large glass of ale in one hand, and her friend, a slim red-head, held another.

"Bishop, this is Poppy and Ginger," said Baker, pointing at the brunette and the red-head in turn.

"So I gathered."

"Girls, this is Bishop's first time at the Cherry, so he's never had the privilege of seeing you dance."

"Oh, we can fix that," Ginger smiled. She and Poppy deposited the ales on the table then climbed up beside the pole. What they did next defied both logic and gravity. How two girls could hang upside down from one pole without falling was a skill he could see coming in handy, vis-à-vis climbing up drainpipes of houses.

"Aren't they fantastic?" Baker grinned.

He merely nodded. At first he hadn't seen what was so alluring about the dancing. But now, after watching them for a while, he realised that it had an almost hypnotic quality to it. The girls were always moving, so whenever you tried to focus on one part of their bodies, it was turned away or obscured in the next instant. They moved to the rhythm of the music, swaying, turning and gyrating like beautiful, deadly snakes.

At last their dance ended and they climbed down from the pole, Poppy taking a seat beside Baker and Ginger sitting down beside Bishop.

"Did you enjoy that?" asked Ginger breathlessly.

"Yes, it was... fascinating," Bishop replied.

"He means you were extremely beautiful," said Baker.

Bishop gave his friend a curious glance. Why was Baker trying to impress a whore? It didn't matter if he thought Ginger was pretty or not, or whether Ginger was told that she was pretty. The only thing these women were good for was sex, and surely that didn't involve being complimented? He couldn't imagining anyone complimenting his mother, for instance.

"Have you ever been to a place like this before?" Ginger asked him.

"Well, my mother was a whore, so I guess you could say I grew up in a whore-house."

Under the table, Baker kicked him. He glared at his friend, but Baker was concentrating entirely on Poppy, who was sitting on his knee and appeared to have her tongue in his ear.

"Ah, Bishop, Poppy and I are going upstairs," said Baker. Then he waved a finger at Ginger. "Make sure he has a good time."

"Men always have a good time with me, honey," grinned Ginger.

When Baker and Poppy had disappeared through another door, Ginger turned to him and openly appraised him.

"Well, you don't seem the shy type," she said at last. "So why are you acting like you don't wanna be here? Haven't you ever had a woman before?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Do you wanna go upstairs and I'll show you what you've been missing out on?"

"Sure."

She took his hand and led him across the room and to the same door that Baker and Poppy had left by. It turned out to be a door to the stairs, and she climbed them ahead of him. They passed along a dark corridor and came to another door, which Ginger opened. He found himself in a small bedroom, the bed and a wash stand the only furnishings. The windows were framed by thin orange curtains, and the room was lit by the light of several candles.

"Take a seat," said Ginger, pointing towards the bed. "And take your boots off. I don't do boots on."

He did as she suggested while she herself closed the curtains and used one of the candles to light more, illuminating the room further. When there was enough light to see well by, Ginger approached and climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs with hers. She began kissing his neck as her fingers worked nimbly at unbuttoning his shirt, which she then pushed back off his shoulders. When she transferred her kisses to his lips, teasing him with her tongue to encourage him to kiss back, she let her hands run up his chest and along his shoulders. He shivered; the only time anybody in the Circle touched you was to inflict pain, to punish a failure. Ginger's soft, warm hands were a new experience for him.

It didn't take long for him to get the hang of what to do, of what Ginger expected. His was a fast learner. Though he, like all of the students, bore scars of punishment, it was rarely punishment for failure, for failing to learn. No, his superiors thought that he had too much 'attitude', and so occasionally he was reminded of who was in charge. Whether his teachers resented him because he learned first and gave them little reason to punish him, or whether they sensed there lurked deep within him, buried so deep within his soul that even he could barely feel it, a tiny spark of resentment that yearned for escape and freedom, he did not know.

Because the Golden Cherry had a high customer turn-over, the rooms were not let out for the entire night. This place was no inn, where a man could go to relax and unwind for a whole evening with a woman to warm his bed. The Cherry was strictly about business, and when yours was done you had to leave, so that the girl could go back to work. A good worker at the Cherry could see five or six men per night.

And so Bishop found himself, two hours later, standing outside the Cherry, looking back at the door. He didn't know if Baker was still inside, or whether he had gone back to the house. With no better idea of what to do, he set off back to his home at the Circle.

He never bothered seeing Ginger again. Though over the years he visited many different whore-houses in Luskan, he never used the same whore twice. Unlike Baker, he didn't want to have 'favourites'. Having favourites was too much like become attached to a person, and attachment was something he didn't want. Attachments made a man weak, and he couldn't afford to be weak. He had to keep his wits about him, to survive, to escape. Besides, every woman was different, but once you'd bedded her, nothing was new. He made it a point of never bedding the same woman twice.


	3. Companions Bishop 3

Companions

Bishop - III

"How old are you, Bishop?" asked Sotek.

"Nineteen."

"How old were you when you came to us?"

He paused for a moment. It was hard to remember that far back, sometimes.

"Twelve," he said at last.

"In seven years you have learnt how to track, hunt, and kill. We have taught you the five ways which you can kill a man. You have mastered the knowledge of bladed weapons, of anatomy and physiology, of poisons, of ranged weapons and of magical items. You have learnt how to interrogate a prisoner, how to keep him alive, how to inflict pain, and how to take pain away. You have learnt to move in the shadows, to strike from the darkness, when your enemies are weakest and least expecting it. Your training is now complete. There is nothing more that we can teach you."

"What comes now?" he asked.

"Now you will be tested three times. If you pass your tests, you will become a full member of the Circle of Blades, and you will be given one of these." Sotek pointed to the ring on his finger; it was cold silver and showed tiny blades angled around in a circle.

"And if I don't pass?"

"The nature of these missions is such that if you do not succeed, you will die."

"I see."

"Your first mission," said another of his tutors from behind Sotek, "is to track down and kill a deserter."

"I wasn't aware there had been any," he replied.

"We have kept this quiet. It does not do for news like this become common knowledge. Suffice it to say, we wish the traitor dealt with terminally, then we can announce news of the traitor's desertion and death simultaneously. It will discourage further attempts at leaving the folds."

"Tell me about this deserter. What is his name?"

"Her name," said Sotek. "Natala Direk is her name. She is thirty five years old. She has been a member of the Circle for over fifteen years. Recently, we became aware that she had been selling information about us and our operations to private individuals. This behaviour is not in Luskan's best interests. Before we had chance to act, however, Natala disappeared. She has gone into hiding."

"How can I kill her if you can't tell me where I can find her?"

"Natala can be recognised by a scar on her cheek," said another of the Circle's leaders. "She received it in a bar fight many years ago; a drunk shoved a bottle in her face before she could gut him. Recently, we have been advised that a woman with a crescent-shaped scar on her cheek has been seen lurking around the Black Oyster, a dock-side tavern. It is possible she has lodgings close by. If it is Natala, then you will continue with your mission. If it is not her, you will return to us whilst we gather further information."

"How do you want this done?"

"We want her dead. Humiliated, if possible, but we will settle for merely 'dead'.

"She will be expecting someone to come for her," said Sotek. "This is why we have chosen you for this mission. Though you have been years in Luskan, you do not sound like you are from Luskan. Where the other students have taken on accents to varying degrees, you have not. Also, because until now you have been a student, taught only by a select few, Natala will not know your name, nor your face. Because of the nature of this mission, there will be no overseers. From the moment you step foot out of this door, you are on your own. Nobody will be watching over you. Return to us only when the task is complete."

"How long do I have?"

"As long as you need. We would like to know who exactly Natala has been selling her information to. This is almost as important as Natala's termination. For this mission, at least, we can be patient."

"I understand. I'm ready to begin."

"Very well. Remember. From here on, you're on your own."

"Oh. Before I forget, there is one more thing I'll need."

o - o - o - o - o

The Lord's Desire was a seedy, back-water inn. Despite its name, no Pirate Lord had ever patronised it, and for good reason. Sailors were its main customers, as well as those who plied their wares along the docks; smugglers, thieves, and whores who were too old or unattractive to be given a position in a brothel.

The man who thought of himself as Davram drank half of his ale in one long draught. He had been two days inside the Lord's Desire, had rented a small room in the roof space. It wasn't much, but it was enough, for someone in his position. He had only a few coins left, and these he was carefully saving for more ale.

Despite only having a few coins, he was not as poor as some of the inn's other patrons. His clothes were mercantile, speaking of his obvious martial experience despite his young age. His trousers were thick and mud-stained at the bottom, and his boots were thick soled leather, all the better for days marching on the road. His grey cloak was likewise thick, useful for sleeping in whilst on jobs. A long sword was belted around his waist, the detail on it faded with age and use.

When somebody took the seat beside him his hand went automatically to his inside pocket, where a small knife was hidden. The knife had once belonged to another man named Davram. But on this occasion, it wasn't needed. The visitor was expected.

"How many?" Davram asked.

"Three," said the other man,

"When?"

"Tomorrow night. After the toll of nine."

"In the place we discussed?"

"Yes."

There was an exchange. A black coin purse was passed from Davram to the man, who pocketed it and left. Davram finished his ale, then bought himself another. After he had finished it, he went upstairs to his room, and there he slept.

o - o - o - o - o

The next night, Davram wandered down the main street of the docks. He walked a little unsteadily; it was just before nine and he had already had several ales. As he wandered, he kept his head up, glancing around. It was a trade-off, around here. You either walked around with your head up and alert, watching out for danger but risking stepping in all sorts of foul-smelling disgusting shit, or you kept your eyes out for the foul-smelling, disgusting shit and didn't notice the blade striking from the shadows.

As usual, there were whores plying their wares along the dock front. He ignored them. He was not desperate enough to use a dock-whore, and he doubted he ever would be.

The sound of fighting came from an alley as he passed it by. He wandered silently down it and saw three large figures fighting a smaller one. Brandishing his sword, he ran down the alley, sinking his blade into the lower back of one of the large figures. Another one of them noticed his comrade fall, and turned to strike at Davram with his own weapon. He parried it, and for a moment they struck and parried in the most deadly of dances. In the end, Davram's skill proved the greater; he brought his sword up and its tip found his opponent's throat.

The smaller figure struck its attacker with a knife, and the attacker fell beside his comrades. Content with his work, and that there were no more figures lurking nearby, Davram sheathed his sword and knelt down beside one of the bodies. He patted it over, looking for coins, and came away with a few silvers. Enough for a couple of drinks and another night at the Lord's Desire, maybe, but not as much as he had hoped for.

He stood and turned, and found himself looking down the end of a crossbow. Slowly, he took a step backwards, and the bow moved with him. When he dared raise his eyes from the tip of the bolt, he found himself looking at a woman. Her long blonde hair had been pulled high into a bun, and her brown eyes glared at him fiercely. She may have been beautiful, if it wasn't for the crescent scar on her left cheek. It pulled the skin around it tight, marring her appearance.

"I suppose this means you're not grateful enough to buy me a drink?" he asked, leaning back away from the bolt.

"You suppose correctly."

"Can I at least take what's left on one of the other bodies? I _did_ kill two of them, after all."

"Do you truly expect me to believe you're nothing but a common dock thief?"

"I don't expect you to believe anything, lady. I just wanna take their money and go."

"You may search their bodies," she said, stepping aside but keeping her weapon aimed at his head.

He moved towards the second body and searched it, then did the same with the third. He found a few more silvers on both corpses, but little else.

"Check their fingers," said the woman. He lifted each hand, looking for a ring. Then he checked their necks; one of them had a necklace, and this he took and held up to the moon so he could see it better. When he saw that it was a talisman of Talos, the Stormlord, he dropped it back onto the corpse. He had no interest in raising the ire of any gods.

"I suppose you want half of this?" he asked, counting out the silvers.

"I have no interest in money."

"You're the first bloody person I've met in Luskan who doesn't," he grunted. Then he gestured at the alley. "Can I go now?"

"What is your name?"

"Davram."

"What do you do?"

"Can't you tell? I rescue ungrateful bitches who then threaten me with bloody crossbows." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Fine. I'm a mercenary. Fat lot of good it does me here in this shit-hole of a city."

"Where are you from?"

"Highcliff. It's a few days journey south of Neverwinter. And by the hells, I wish I was back there now."

"What are you doing here?"

"Look, lady, if you're going to kill me, I'd rather you just put that bolt through my head instead of talking me to death. I've done my good deed for the day, only got a few silvers for it, and I wanna go in case these guys have friends who come looking for them."

"Fine. You want a drink? I will buy you a drink. And you will answer my questions. If I like your answers, I may have a job for you at the end of them."

"And if you don't like them?"

She waved the crossbow at his head.

"Get moving," she said.

o - o - o - o - o

Davram stood outside the door of the bedroom. Opposite him was another bodyguard; one who belonged to Natala's 'contact'. She had liked his answers, and she had given him a job that involved him protecting her from being double-crossed by those she did business with.

Eventually, she came out of the room, and gestured for him to follow her. He knew that she met her contacts like this, in taverns of ill repute, because she wanted everyone to believe she was merely screwing the men she met. She had told him as much herself; she seemed to believe that because he was bigger than her and stronger than her, that he was dumber than her. He didn't mind. The mercantile trade was one that did not require a great amount of intelligence, after all.

"Are we being followed?" she asked when they stepped out onto the street.

"No, we're not being bloody followed," he growled.

"You didn't even look around."

"Fine." He looked around, staring for a moment at the dark patches of shadows. "Nothing. I told you, we're not being followed. You're paranoid."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew the sort of enemies I have."

"Well, I don't, because you haven't told me. And until I see some of these enemies for myself, I'll continue to think they're all in your head. But you're paying me well, and as long as you keep the coin and ale coming, I'll protect you from your imaginary enemies."

"Have you forgotten the three who tried to kill me in the alleyway on the night you so valiantly rescued me?"

"You get muggers in any city. I've been to Waterdeep and Neverwinter, and it can be just as dangerous there."

"If I needed proof that you're clueless, I just found it."

He grunted, not bothering to argue, and followed her back to the Black Oyster. There she had a room under a fake name, and it was the same name she had given to him - Sarene Daleson. She had also paid for a room for him, a tiny thing with a single bed and a small chest of drawers. It was just as well he had no other personal effects, other than the clothes and weapons that he wore, because he wouldn't have had anywhere to put them.

When they entered the tavern she gave him a handful of coins and he sat at one of the tables, gesturing at the barman to bring him an ale. Natala, meanwhile, made her way up the stairs, to her own room. She never drank alcohol, said it gave her a headache. He suspected it was more to do with the fact that drinking was not what a professional did. Alcohol tended to dull the senses, slow the reflexes, and make a person chatty. Naturally, he drank quite a lot of it. His drinking habits seemed to put Natala at ease.

He drank three tankards, then made his way unsteadily to the stairs. The inn had only a couple of other patrons, so he did not worry too much about being quiet. The stairs themselves were unsteady, wooden things. One of them was broken, and this he stepped over. When he reached his room, opposite Natala's, he fumbled with the key in the lock, swearing when it refused to turn any further. He hated the lock on the door. It was always a pain to open and close, but he daren't risk leaving his door unlocked. Not that there was anything in it worth stealing, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Davram," said Natala. He turned and found her standing in the doorway to her room. "Will you come in for a moment?"

He nodded and, a little groggily, followed her into her room. It was bigger than his, and almost as bare. She had only a couple of changes of clothing to her name, and few personal effects. One advantage that her room had over his, apart from its size, was the small hearth. It made her room almost cosy.

"What's up?" he asked when she gestured for him to close the door.

"You've done good work, so far," she said, standing with her back to the fire so she could watch him.

"Good work protecting you from your invisible enemies," he snorted.

"You've been working for me for almost two weeks now, and you haven't once asked me what it is that I do when I meet my contacts, why all the secrecy is required."

"You pay me to protect you, and that's what I do. Quite frankly, I don't really care what it is you do, and I don't want to know. That way, if it's illegal, I can honestly say that I didn't know about it."

"Quite a refreshing attitude. Most people in Luskan would kill to know my secrets, to sell them on to my enemies and earn their favour."

"Like I said, you pay for my services, not my curiosity. That costs extra."

"Then perhaps, since I am paying you, there is another service you can perform for me," she said, crossing the floor and standing in front of him. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across his, and when he did not object she insinuated her arms around his neck and kissed him more firmly.

From that moment on, she made it clear that she was in charge. When his fingers wandered where she did not want them wandering she batted them away with her hand until she was ready. If he did something she didn't like it was punished with a nip from her teeth or a scratch of her nails.

"How did you get these?" she asked, running her hands over his bare chest, over the few faint scars there.

"A couple of them I got tousling with my older brother when we were younger. The rest are from fights whilst working or drinking."

She said nothing more about his scars, and before long he forgot about talking altogether. She was the first women he had slept with who wasn't a whore - at least, not professionally - and he noticed the difference immediately. It was the job of a whore to be biddable, to please the man who bought her. Natala made it quite clear that he was only there for _her_ pleasure; if he found any, it was entirely coincidental.

Eventually she was satisfied, and lay panting on top of him. Sweat coated both of their bodies, and he found himself physically tired for once. He barely even noticed her move her arm, but when cold metal was placed against his throat he immediately began to pay attention.

"Who sent you?" she asked, her eyes cold.

"What in the hells are you talking about?"

"You heard me. Tell me who sent you."

"You're a crazy bitch," he said, using all of her strength to push her off him. He stood up before she could try to pin him down. "No, I take that back. You're a fucking _insane_ bitch. Why the bloody hell I'm risking my life for you is beyond me. Consider this my resignation. You can give me what you owe me for this week and then I'm getting out of this shit-hole and away from all its lunatics."

"No need for that. I just had to make sure you weren't sent by my enemies." She slipped the knife back under the pillow and patted the bed, gesturing for him to lie down again.

"So all of this has just been some sort of insane test?"

"Mostly. If you're offended, you may take your clothes and leave. I have much to do before my next appointment tomorrow."

He pulled on his underwear and trousers and gathered his shirt, belt and sword in his arms, making his way towards the door before she could change her mind.

"Davram," she said, and he stopped with the door open. "Don't think this makes you special."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said, and returned to his tiny room.

o - o - o - o - o

By the end of his fourth week of employment, Davram had escorted Natala to over a dozen clandestine meetings and run errands for her to a handful of faceless messengers. With the wage she paid him he had saved up a small stockpile of money which he had hidden carefully underneath a loose floorboard beneath his bed. He didn't know exactly what he would use the money for, but there would come a point when there were no more jobs to do for Natala... no more Natala to protect.

Sitting on the end of his bed in his small, cold room, he turned a skinning knife over and over in his hand, becoming familiar once again with the blade that had been so long gone from his possession. He was lucky, really, that the Circle hadn't thrown it away when they had taken him. They had merely put it into 'storage', along with the bow that was now far too small for him, and therefore useless. He had managed to convince them that he would need this knife to complete his mission.

In truth, he wanted it more for sentimental reasons. Any knife would suffice for this job, as long as it wasn't flashy enough to catch Natala's notice. But this was _his_ knife. He had taken it, and it was the one thing that he had to remind him of home. Or at least of Rosie and Scarlet; the only two people he truly cared about.

There was a knock on his door and he put the knife away, then stood and opened it. He found Natala looking up at him, her brown eyes animated.

"It's time to go," she said. "I've just heard from my contact and he's ready to meet me."

"Took him bloody long enough." It had been almost a week since she had requested a meeting with him.

"Grab what you need and meet me downstairs," she said, disappearing along the corridor.

There wasn't much for him to grab. He simply slipped his sword and sheath onto his belt and threw his cloak around his shoulders. Then he followed her down the stairs and together they left the building.

As usual the docks crawled with sailors and whores; they fell drunkenly out of taverns and groped in the alleyways, barely paying attention to those around them. Davram snorted in disgust as he passed them.

"You are very judgmental," said Natala. "What business is it of yours what other people do, if they are not harming you in doing it?"

"I just don't wanna see it every bloody night," he growled. He was, after all, supposed to be from a small farming community in Neverwinter's territory.

She merely laughed and gestured towards the merchant's area of the city. When they eventually came to a tavern called The Green Man he followed her inside and up to a room. How she knew which room to go to he did not know; it was something he hadn't been able to figure out yet. He assumed that she had some sort of coded message that she recognised, but if that was the case then he hadn't been able to decipher it yet.

She knocked on the door and it was opened by a man who had the look of a guard about him. Natala herself had pulled up the hood of her cloak on the way over, and a cloaked man was sitting beside a table in the room. At a nod from the hooded man the guard left the room to stand beside Davram.

They stood in silence for almost an hour. It was one of Natala's instructions; _don't talk to the guards for any reason_. Apparently, most of the guards had been given the same instructions, for very few of them tried to engage him in conversation. The ones that did were met with icy glares.

Eventually Natala came out of the room and gestured in silence for him to follow. Even on the walk back to the Oyster she said not a word, and he wondered if something was wrong. In the Oyster itself she retired to her room without requesting his 'services', which was unusual after a successful meeting with one of her contacts. Normally it put her in a good mood, and when she was in a good mood she usually spent a good few hours devising new and interesting ways to make him squirm.

He suspected that she had been badly treated by men in the past, either members of the Circle or former lovers. Either way, she seemed to look down on men, as if she considered every man a threat to her. And the bigger the man, the more intelligent he was, the stronger he was, the more of a threat she considered him. She took great pleasure in making him understand that _she_ was top-dog, and because he was bigger than her, stronger than her, and had slightly more intelligence than the average expendable guard, she enjoyed making him feel inferior, or, at the very least, disadvantaged. Sometimes that involved knives, which brought back memories of his first days at the Circle, though she never inflicted as much pain or caused as much blood loss as Marcin had. When she wasn't able to reach her knife she was usually content to use her teeth, nails, hair pins, or any other object that was marginally sharp and could draw blood.

When he reached his own room he took off his sword and removed a small bottle of oil and a rag from his drawer. Sitting on the end of his bed, he began to polish the sword. It was a nightly ritual, and it was how he kept track of the days. Eventually there was a familiar knock on his door, and Natala let herself in. That was something different. She had always taken him back to her own room before now. She waited for him to put his sword away before speaking.

"I'm leaving Luskan next week," she said.

"Am I going with you?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"I see. Can I at least ask why?"

"My business here is almost complete. With the money I have made I have enough to move very, very far from here. I never want to hear of Luskan again."

"That's understandable, I suppose. I can't really blame you for wanting to get away. Truth be told, the only reason I've stayed in this hell-hole for so long is because of you. Working for you, I mean."

"Of course," she said, suppressing a smile that pulled at one corner of her mouth. "Come into my room, and we can discuss it further."

"I'll be right there," he said, holding up his oily hands and the rag he had been using for his weapon.

She nodded and left. Quickly, he wiped his hands on a clean rag and put the bottle of oil and the dirty rag back in the drawer. Then, from the single cupboard in his room, he took a length of rope and looped it, tying it to the back of his belt. Then he stepped out into the corridor, locked his door behind him, and entered hers.

She was lying on her stomach on the bed, her shirt unlaced at the top so that it exposed some of her bosom. She smiled when he closed the door behind him, and gestured for him to approach.

"I thought we might try something different tonight," he said, producing the rope from behind him. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"You must think me a fool, if you believe I'm going to let you use that on me."

"Of course not. It's for you to use on me. It's sort of a fantasy of mine. The thought of being tied up and helpless, completely at someone's mercy... the thought excites me."

"Oh? Well, I would hate to disappoint you," she said with a wicked grin.

Before she tied him up she forced him to strip down to his trousers, then she wrapped the rope expertly around his wrists - if there was any doubt in his mind that she was an assassin, it fled with her actions right then - and then tied the other end around the wrought-iron head of the bed. His arms trussed together at the wrists, he could move his hands only by a few inches.

As he had feared, she brought out her collection of knives, alternating small, shallow cuts with soft kisses, rubbing her body alluringly against his as she caused him pain and pleasure by turn. By the time she put down the knives he was beginning to regret ever suggesting the rope. He had only ever been as helpless as he was then one time before, when Marcin was torturing him, and he liked it as much now as he had then.

Natala, however, seemed to have no such compunctions; if her moans and gasps were any indication she was having a better time than she ever had before, riding him as he had once seen his mother ride another man named Davram. When she finally collapsed on top of him, breathing heavily and shivering a little from the cooling sweat on her body, he tried to lie still and pretend he had enjoyed it as much as she had.

"You may come with me, when I leave," she said at last, kissing him lightly.

"Do you really think you're in danger here?" he asked.

"Constantly."

"Then you go. Go tomorrow if you have to. Take what money you have and let me finish whatever business you have left. Then I'll join you."

"You truly care for my welfare that much? You would finish my business here, allowing me to leave tomorrow?"

"Of course. I don't want anything to happen to you. I can help you."

"Thank you for the offer," she smiled. "But my contacts will not meet with anyone other than me. Plus the information I have to pass on is not written down anywhere, nor can it be. It's all up here." She tapped the side of her head, ruffling her hair slightly. "That's why the meetings take so long. I have to ensure that my contacts hear all I have to say."

"I understand. You know... I can't feel my arms anymore," he said, glancing up at his bound hands.

"I must have tied them too tight. I didn't want you getting away." She reached up and unfastened the knots that tied the rope to the bed, and he slowly dealt with the ones around his wrists, rubbing the skin beneath them as they loosened. Sitting up, he moved the ropes to his hands, rather than his wrists.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you," he said, leaning down to kiss her. As she craned her neck up, leaning towards his kiss, he slipped the rope over the top of her head, pulling it tight around her neck.

She coughed, scrabbling with her hands for the dagger beneath her pillow, but he kicked it away before she could reach it. When she tried fighting him, punching and scratching him with as much strength as she could muster, he pulled tighter on the rope and swivelled his hips, throwing her over his shoulder and pinning her down with his knees. Beneath his full weight, deprived of air, she could only flail feebly as the life drained out of her.

When she ceased struggling he still kept the pressure on the rope. He knew, from his training, that she could simply be faking death, holding her breath and waiting for him to let go before retaliating. So for a full five minute count he pulled the rope as tight as he could, and when he was sure she would not move again he released his grip, the muscles of his arms aching from the exertion.

For some moments he merely sat there, doing nothing, thinking nothing. Then he checked for a pulse on Natala's neck. There was nothing. She was dead. He had completed his mission. There was nothing left for him here.

He dressed, feeling... nothing. Was that normal? He had just killed someone. A woman. A woman he had been sleeping with for the past four weeks. Why didn't he feel... guilt, or regret? He felt neither happiness nor sadness at his act. He had heard some of his tutors say that killing someone, taking a life, being in control of those last moments, was like an aphrodisiac, causing feelings of power and strength to flow through the body. But he felt nothing like that. He felt nothing at all.

When he was fully dressed he searched the room. He searched beneath the bed, inside the mattress, in the pillows, behind the cupboards and wardrobes, he even checked all of the floorboards, in case any were loose. He eventually found what he was looking for behind an old crooked painting of a ship at sea. Part of the wall had been hollowed out and here he found a sack with money in it. A lot of money. More money than he had ever seen before in his life.

He put the sack on the floor and then looked at the woman on the bed. Then he took the rope from her neck and bound her hands, tying the rope to the bed as she had tied him. There was little else he could do. His superiors had wanted her humiliated, and this seemed suitable. When her room board was due again the innkeeper would come looking for her, though it might take a couple of days. By then he would be long gone, and rumour of the former assassin killed naked in her bed would circulate quickly around the city. One assassin assassinated by another. The thought was mildly amusing.

Once he was finished he took the sack and went into his own room. He removed the bag of his own money from beneath his bed and took a look around. There was nothing of him left inside the room. It could have been used by just about anybody. And that was the way he preferred it. He would leave no mark behind. It would be as if he was never even there.

o - o - o - o - o

"We are pleased with your work," said Sotek, after Bishop's debriefing. "It is... unfortunate... that you couldn't figure learn who Natala was sending her information to, but considering she was planning to flee, we will not question your decision to terminate her before the full completion of your mission. We will simply hope that any information she passed on will not compromise our future activities, and act with caution in the foreseeable future."

"In the mean time," said another tutor, "your second test awaits you."

"What is my test?"

"We have been hired by one of the High Captains who has fallen afoul of another Lord. To make known his displeasure, our employer wishes to send a message to the Lord who has crossed him."

"A message?"

"The Lord in question has a wife and two children. That is three more family members than our employer wishes him to have."

"Your task is to enter the Lord's house tomorrow night. He will be dining with one of the other Lords tomorrow, and his personal guards will be with him. You must enter the house covertly and kill his wife and children, but _only_ his wife and children. None of the guards must see you. Our employer wishes his enemy to know that no amount of guards will keep him safe, that his own vengeance is fast and carried out with surgical precision."

"It will not be easy, to enter the place unseen and undetected. Can I ask if the other students were given such... challenging tests?" he said.

"They were given tests that were proportional to their skills and abilities. This is the way we have always worked. Do you have any questions?"

"No."

"You may take what equipment you need from our storehouse. This will not be like your last mission. You will not have time to plan and carry out your task. You will have to plan as you go and think on your toes. As soon as you have completed your mission you are to return here for debriefing. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Then you may go and prepare. I recommend you get a good night's rest before your test."

When Bishop reached his empty room he lay back on his bed, his mind racing. Baker had passed his own tests a year earlier. Since his 'graduation', Bishop had not seen his former roommate. Those who passed their tests were moved out of the student accommodations, given freedom to live where they chose and travel where they chose. Meanwhile, he himself was kept from seeing too many of the newer recruits, though there were less and less of them each year. It was all to do with security - one day, he might be the one to betray the Circle, and they would send an assassin after him, just as he had been sent after Natala.

It was quite possible and not at all unlikely that his tutors were trying to make him fail. To kill him. That would explain the nature of the missions he was being sent on. Tracking down and killing an experienced assassin was difficult, and he suspected if Natala had not been a woman, he would not have succeeded. And now, to break into the home of one of the Lords and kill his immediate family? That was a job for a fully fledged assassin with years of experience behind him. Not some green student who had only ever killed one person before. It wasn't just the task itself that was impossible, but the restrictions that had been placed on him. To complete his mission undetected, to allow no alarm to be raised... to him, it seemed almost impossible.

But it they were looking to break him, to see him fail, to see him die, they would be waiting a long time indeed. He would play their game, he would go on their missions, and he would bide his time, waiting for them to weaken their grip on him. Five weeks ago he had nothing. Now he had his knife, a large amount of coin, and the knowledge that he could kill without hesitation. They had made him what he was, and he was going to make sure that one day they regretted it.

o - o - o - o - o

Fog had rolled in from the sea, covering Luskan in an ethereal blanket. Which was just as well; as he made his way back to the Circle's safe-house, Bishop barely even bothered to stick to the shadows. His clothes were red with blood, his skin was sticky with it, the smell of it filling his nostrils until he wanted to scream that he couldn't tale the smell anymore.

He would hear the cries of the children as he cut their mother's throat, and then theirs, for the rest of his life. Their screams, he knew, would haunt his dreams, torturing him forever. But he had had no choice. It was either them or him. Yes, they were innocent, but wasn't he also? He hadn't chosen this for himself. He didn't want to assassinate people. To kill them. To murder them. But this was what they had made him. It was either them or him.

In a way, they were partially to blame. The wife and children of a Pirate Lord. Those who were close to the heart of Luskan's leadership. They could have tried to convince their husband, their father, to make things better in Luskan. They could have tried to convince him to stop the fighting, the slaughter, the constant warring with the other Pirate Lords. But they didn't. They sat in their manor house growing fat from the ill-gotten gains of their husband and father. The banquets that were bought for them, the gifts that were given to them, were paid for in blood; the blood of the poor folk of Luskan. The blood of those who did not deserve to be caught up in wars like this.

The more he thought about it, the more sense his actions made. His had actually done Luskan a _favour_ by killing the wife and children of a High Captain. They were just as guilty as the man himself. By breaking the cycle, by ensuring that no more sons would grow to follow in their father's footsteps, he had made Luskan a safer place for everyone.

When he reached the safe-house he gave a message to the door guard, asking him to let Sotek know that he had returned. Then he went to his room, and began to wash the blood from his body. Before long the stone basin was dark red, and the floor wasn't much better.

It didn't take long for the summons. As he was drying himself and changing into clean clothes, one of the other students knocked on his door to advise him that his tutors were ready for him. He walked the cold, dark corridor alone. He knew the way, by now, to the briefing room. He walked slowly, though not to delay the inevitable; he was aching and physically tired by the difficulty of the mission. There were times when he thought for sure he had been seen, and he had frozen still for ten minutes or more whilst guards passed slowly by on their rounds. It was even more difficult than his first task had been; if each test was worse than the last, then how bad would his next one be? He let the thought slip as he knocked on the door where his future awaited him.

"We congratulate you on another job well done," said Sotek as Bishop took a seat.

"Thank you."

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Did you find your mission difficult?" asked another tutor. "Any last moment hesitations? Any regrets, or pangs of guilt or worry now?"

"None," said Bishop, meeting the man's eyes squarely. The tutor nodded, and was the first to look away.

"You should find your next mission simple by comparison," said Sotek, smiling. "We feel that Neverwinter has grown too bold, that it no longer fears the name of Luskan as it once did. They are looking to expand their borders towards us, using diplomacy as a guise for war. It is past time that we showed them the might of Luskan."

"We wish to send them a message," another tutor smiled.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Bishop, hope and unease warring inside him, making him feel queasy. Any mission involving Neverwinter almost undoubtedly meant being sent away from Luskan. Here was a potential chance.

"Pick a village inside Neverwinter's territory. Then erase it from the map."

For a moment, he did not understand. Any map that it was erased from would be useless, and easily replaceable with another. Then, like dawn breaking over the horizon, he understood their meaning. To remove a village from every single map, it would have to be removed from the world.

"How?" he asked simply, trying to grasp the enormity of his task.

"Any way you like. Poison is always a good option. Easy to slip into a town's water source, though of course you have to make sure that all within the settlement succumb to it. You know the advantages and disadvantages yourself, you don't need me to reiterate them for you," said Sotek.

"If you want to send a political statement, why not simply kill one of their ambassadors, or a noble, or..."

"It has already been decided," said Marcin. So far the torturer, the one man he still feared, had been silent throughout the briefings. Now his eyes were pinched in anger. "Assassinating ambassadors and nobles only puts fear into the hearts of other ambassadors and nobles. That sort of thing is entirely expected. No, what we want is to destroy Neverwinter from the inside out, like an apple rotting from its core; beautiful on the outside, but corrupted on the inside. We want the citizens of Neverwinters, its farmers, its bakers, its butchers, its wives and children, to know fear and doubt. We want them to become suspicious and mistrustful of strangers. We want them to turn on their neighbours and friends, to see killers lurking inside the face of every man, woman and child. We don't simply want people killed, we want them _destroyed_."

"Are you testing my abilities, or my loyalty?"

"Both," said Sotek. "And this time, there _will_ be overseers, to make sure your task is complete. This time we _will_ want to examine the evidence for ourselves, to watch you work, to judge your worthiness."

On the table in front of him he spread out a map of the northern Sword Coast. At the top of the map was the edge of Luskan's territory, and at the bottom was Waterdeep. Between the two was Neverwinter's lands, extending from Port Llast, south of the border with Luskan and the Duskwood, right down to the Sword Mountains.

"It's your choice, Bishop."

He looked at the map in front of him. Names jumped out at him; names of cities, towns, villages and hamlets, the size of the names denoting the size of the settlements. No matter where he chose, people were going to die because of him. This wasn't assassination... this was slaughter. Going in and poisoning a bunch of farmers would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

But what if he could choose a place where he _wouldn't_ be killing innocent people? What if he could choose a place that was as rotten as Luskan? What if he could choose a place that had once turned a blind eye to the suffering of a child? He knew of a place where the people did not care about their neighbours, where they were greedy and cared only for their own welfare, where husbands cheated daily on their wives and children were allowed to go hungry and be beaten.

"I've made my choice," he said, pointing to a tiny village in the swamp that bore on the map its elven name; Meredelain.


	4. Companions Bishop 4

Companions

Bishop - IV

The Mere was just as Bishop remembered it. It was a humid, dark, dank swamp, a mire of dead people buried beneath its murky waters and dangerous creatures that lurked in the deepest areas of the long-deserted ruins. The assassins with him grumbled about the smell, about the swarming flies, about the poor light and stale air. But Bishop took long, deep breaths, letting memories of the place flood his senses.

It was not a place for weaklings, the Mere. It was not a place for city-dwellers with their fine shoes and fine senses, or their clean clothes and clean habits. It was a rugged, untamed land, and those that survived it grew stronger because of it. The weak were quickly weeded out, the herd thinned by lizardmen raids or simply by the oppressiveness of the swamp itself. Some people said that it was haunted, that at nights, the spirits of the elves, men and orcs rose again to continue their centuries-old battles.

He had never seen ghosts, and he suspected those tales were merely invented by mothers who wanted to cow their children. _If you don't behave, the lizardmen will come for you. If you're naughty, the spirits will rise and carry you away with them_. Parents in Luskan told their children similar tales, only it was the High Captains who would steal you away, in Luskan, not lizardmen. All in all, if you were going to be captured by anyone, the High Captains were the better option.

"Did you pick this place just to spite us?" asked one of the assassins who had been sent to accompany him.

"I suspect," said Marcin, following behind, "that our friend Bishop bears a grudge towards his former home. A very large grudge."

"I'm beginning to get a grudge myself." The assassin stepped in a puddle of rank, foul-smelling swamp water, and swore.

"Follow my lead and stick to the paths," Bishop advised him. "There's worse than water in the Mere."

"Right. Ghosts and lizardmen and bears," he sneered. "Next you'll be telling us there's dragons and whole armies of trolls."

"Where are you leading us, Bishop?" asked Marcin. He was the 'leader' of the other three assassins sent to watch over him, to make sure he completed his task.

"To some old ruins where you can wait without being discovered. There's a lot I have to set up before nightfall."

"Yes, about that. May I ask why you've chosen this particular... method? Poison would have worked just as well."

"Maybe in a Luskan village, but not here. The water table tends to rise unpredictably, leaking swamp water into the wells. It would dilute any poison I poured into it, possibly let the poison escape into the surrounding water channels. Plus, my way is faster, more effective."

"I'd be bloody surprised if anything in this swamp burns," said another assassin.

"Oh, don't worry, it'll burn alright. That's why I brought so much oil."

"And if any of the villagers should escape the fire?" Marcin asked.

"That's why I brought a bow. Trust me, I know these people. Most of them couldn't find their way out of a bed, much less a burning house."

"I hope you are right."

Bishop led his peers to a group of old ruins that he knew would not yet have been reclaimed by the Mere. They were on dry ground, protected all around by marsh plants and trees. There he bade them wait, telling them he would be back before midnight. The bags containing small barrels of oil he carried off on his own, making his way towards the village.

Before he got there, he made a detour to different ruins which sat beside a small meadow. There, he gathered handfuls of colourful wildflowers, and sat down on the ground. Patiently, ignoring the biting flies that swarmed around him, he began to thread flowers through the stems of others.

o - o - o - o - o

He reached Redfallows Watch in the late afternoon. The barrels of oil had been safely hidden away in an old childhood hiding place of his, and now he was unencumbered, save for the small pack on his back. Slowly, he passed through the village, until he came to a house. He stopped outside it, and looked at it.

The house was of a decent size; it should have had a family living in it. A mother and father and their children and pet dogs. But instead, it was silent, its windows dark and foreboding. One of the windows had been broken, and a gentle breeze blew the curtain inside it. The other windows were dirty; they obviously hadn't seen a clean rag in a long time.

"You lost, stranger?" said a voice behind him. Turning, he found himself looking at a broad, grey-haired man. The blacksmith of Redfallows watch.

"Who lives in this house?" he asked, ignoring the question.

"Ain't nobody lived in that house for years. Used to belong to our trapper, but he buggered off one day and never came back. His 'prentice lived in it for a while, but he disappeared too."

"I'm looking for Rosie."

"Oh? And who's asking?" asked the smith, spitting out a well-chewed wad of tobacco.

"I am... Cain. I'm a distant cousin of the family. I've come all the way from Neverwinter to see her."

"Hmph. Well, you do have that look of a city-man about you. Just don't think you're better than us 'cos of it."

"No, of course not. I'm very eager to see my cousin. I haven't seen her since we were children. Where is she?"

"Over there," said the smith, nodding his head towards a house. "The one with the red curtains."

"Her parents... my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Peter... are they there, too?"

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Hmph. I'll let Rosie tell you about it. It's a family thing, after all."

"Right. Thank you."

He left the smith, making his way to the house with the red curtains. Red was Rosie's favourite colour. He wasn't surprised that she'd made curtains in that colour too. Probably her whole house was red.

He knocked on the front door, then waited for a moment. When the door was opened, he looked down at the small child, and his first thought was that Rosie had grown younger. The girl was the spitting image of her; sparkling blue eyes, long brown hair and rosebud lips painted on pale skin.

"Hello?" he said warily.

"Hello," she replied.

"I'm... looking for Rosie."

"Maaaa!" the girl shouted, stepping back into the house. "There's a man here for you."

"Who is it, sweetie?" a woman's voice shouted from further within the house.

"I dunno Ma," the girl shouted back.

"Then find out who it is, honey."

"Who is it?" the child asked him.

"My name is Bishop."

"It's Bishop, Ma!" she called out.

The unfamiliar name of a man was obviously enough to raise the concern of the woman in the house. He heard footsteps, and then a stranger was standing before him in the doorway. Her long brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and back, spilling over her blue shirt in luxurious waves. It was held back from her pale face by a red scarf tied over her head. Blue eyes watched him warily, one hand clasping the shoulder of the girl, pulling her back into the house, away from the door, the other hand holding a vase of stylised glass. Beneath her blue shirt the woman wore a plain brown and white skirt, that bulged around the mid-riff showing the later stages of pregnancy.

"Rosie?" he asked, not able to bring himself to believe that this woman was the same carefree friend of his childhood.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked.

"It's me," he offered, for once lost for words.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we've met before."

"I have something for you." He took off his pack, and the woman edged the girl further back from the door. He took out the crown of flowers he had made in the meadow, and held it out to her. Her face went white, and the glass vase dropped from her fingers, shattering on the wooden floor. Beside her, the girl began to cry.

"Rosie? Rosie, are you alright?" he asked, taking the crown back.

"You... it can't be... you're dead," she whispered. The girl cried even louder. He quickly looked around at the village; some of the people were looking at him, at Rosie, at the girl who was crying. This wasn't what he wanted. He didn't _need_ this attention right now.

"Look, I'm not dead. Can I come in for a moment? I need to talk to you."

"I... I need to clean this up," she said, bending down and reaching for the broken shards of glass.

"Leave it. I'll clean it up. You... um... see to your... ah... daughter."

She took the girl into her arms, humming a gentle tune to comfort the child. Meanwhile, he reached behind the door for the dustpan and brush that every house-wife in Redfallows Watch kept behind their front doors for sweeping the steps of their home, and used it to collect the pieces of broken glass. He took them into the house, following Rosie into the living room, and closed the front door behind him.

"Shush darling, shush," said Rosie, gently rocking the girl in her arms.

"What's her name?" he asked. It seemed the safest topic of conversation.

"Shannon. Her name's Shannon."

"Shannon, would you like some flowers?" he asked, holding the wreath out to her. She watched him for a moment, rubbed her eyes with her hands, then reached out and took the crown of buttercups, holding it to her chest. Rosie gestured for him to sit down on a chair, but she still held her daughter in her arms, almost as if she wanted to use her as a protective shield against him.

"She looks just like you," he said. "How old is she?"

"Three years and a bit."

"And when is your... next one... due?" he gestured at her bump.

"A month or so."

"Are you alright? I get the feeling you don't believe that it's really me." Some of the colour had returned to her cheeks, but now she watched him like a hawk, as if waiting for him to slip up. When had she become so suspicious?

"What was that name, that Shannon said you called yourself?"

"Bishop. It's what they call me."

"They?"

"The Luskans who took me." He stood and took a step towards her, and she took a hurried step back. "What happened to you, Rosie? What happened to the little girl who wanted to live in a castle and be a princess?"

"What happened to_ me_?" she said, a strangled laugh escaping her lips. "I grew up. There are no castles, here. People like me don't become princesses. I was born in a swamp, live in a swamp, and will die in a swamp. Foolish daydreams won't put bread on my daughter's plate, nor mend her worn-out clothes."

Her words hurt him as much as Marcin's torture ever had. Rosie had always been a dreamer. She had always wanted better for herself than a life in the Mere. And because _she_ believed that better things were waiting around the corner, he had believed it too. Her dreams had become his dreams, her hope had become his hope. The only thing that had kept him going for the past seven years was the thought that he could one day find Rosie again, and return to the innocence of childhood fantasies. In his mind he had kept the child that he had been separate from the man they had forced him to become; now the two were trying to merge together, and they didn't fit. Suddenly the room was stifling, the air too heavy to breathe. He went to the door and opened it, breathing in the fresh air of the Mere.

"Sometimes," said Rosie, close behind him, "I wished that they'd taken me too. I used to lie awake and blame myself for it. If I hadn't been so useless, if I had stayed to help you, then we could have beaten the men, scared them off. Or perhaps they would have taken both of us together."

"You wouldn't have liked where they took me," he said, glaring at the people who stared at him as they passed. "I'm glad you got away. I wanted you to protect Scarlet, and you did. I haven't seen her yet... I doubt she'll even recognise me."

"Please come inside." He detected a hint of agitation in her voice, and turned to find her eyeing the villagers warily. "You shouldn't be seen with me. Please come inside, away from these prying eyes."

"What's going on here, Rosie? Why shouldn't I be seen with you."

"Please, come inside!" she insisted, going so far as to reach out and tug on his sleeve with her free hand. In her other arm, Shannon watched him, so much like her mother.

When they were inside, Rosie sat her daughter on the sofa and put a cast iron kettle on the small aga, measuring out tea-leaves into two cups. He sensed that she needed silence, to think of what to say and how to react to him reappearing out of nowhere after years. The kettle boiled and she poured water into the cups, giving one to him.

"Your parents..." she began at last. "They're dead."

"How?" It wasn't that great of a loss to him, but he was still curious about how they had lived their final years, and whether anything had ever changed between them.

"Your father... after you were taken, he started drinking even more. He couldn't even take care of Scarlet, so I took her home with me, and she lived with my family. I think... I think your father eventually couldn't take any more of your mother's behaviour. I don't really know why he did it... he killed her, with an axe, as she slept. Then he hung himself."

"The world is better off without them," he scowled.

"How can you say that? For better or worse, they were your parents!"

"And the best parents in the world, they were. A whore who hated me and a physically abusive drunk. But I'm glad that you were able to get Scarlet out of there. Does she still live with your parents, or here with you?"

There were tears in her eyes as he spoke, and she closed them for a moment, pretending to sip her tea. He could tell that she was on the verge of losing her self-control; he had watched Marcin torture people often enough to know the point at which the tears came despite best efforts to keep them back.

"I got married when I was sixteen. I couldn't bring her here to live with me. My husband... he didn't want someone else's child to take care of. We had Shannon on the way... I left Scarlet with my parents. I knew she'd have to work hard for them, like I did, but I knew they'd take good care of her. I knew she'd never be hungry or lonely, and she'd have Flash to take care of her if Peter ever tried to boss her around."

"Thank you. You've done more than I could ever have asked for."

"Don't thank me," she said, tears now spilling down her cheeks. "Last year... last year, the village was invaded."

"Lizardmen?" he asked, feeling his grip on the cup tighten. She shook her head.

"Lizardmen wouldn't have been a problem. We were attacked by... by orcs. I heard they were displaced by elves or dwarves or something, and came into the Mere looking for easy targets. We managed to hold them back for a few days... I think they were too busy fighting the lizardmen to bother with us, at first. Then there was a whole army of orcs on the move. We had knights here and everything. Lord Nasher himself came, to lead the defence against them. Most of us survived, but not everyone was so lucky. A few orcs slipped around Neverwinter's forces. They came to the village... to my family's house... by night. They killed everyone inside. My parents, Peter, Scarlet... it was a slaughter. I couldn't go back in there, afterwards. Some of the farmers went in... they said there was blood everywhere. Lord Nasher eventually found the orcs that did it... his knights hunted them down. But that didn't bring back my family."

When he realised he was in danger of breaking the cup in his hands, he relaxed his grip. Inside him, the child that he had been raged at the injustice of the orc attack. His sister had not deserved death at the hands of orcs. She had deserved more. She had deserved to be a princess in a castle living happily ever after. Just like Rosie had deserved it. Well, he might not have been able to help his friend for the past seven years, but he could help her now. He could give her her dreams back. He might not be able to buy her a castle, but with the money he had gained from Natala, secreted away in his pack, he could buy her a nice house far away from the Mere. Maybe somewhere near the coast, so she could see the gulls flying freely on the breeze. He could buy a puppy for Shannon, just like he had for Scarlet. And when Rosie's new baby came along, he could help her care for it. He was good with children, wasn't he?

"Will you come away from here with me?" he asked.

"What? Are you crazy? This is my home. You're not crazy, are you? You're completely serious."

"I have some money saved up. I can take you as far away from here as you like. I can give you and Shannon a better life than this."

"And I can't?" she asked angrily. "I'm just a poor woman, a bad mother who can't give her daughter things, so you'll just come along with your money and save us, just like that?"

"That's not what I mean!" He stood, putting his cup down on the table in front of him, and took a step towards her. At his movement she flinched, and raised an arm in a feeble attempt at a protective gesture. That was when he noticed the bruise on her arm; it spread along the inside, a large purple and back thing that must have hurt like hell at the time it was done.

"Please, just leave me alone," she whimpered.

"Did somebody hurt you, Rosie? Was it your husband?"

"What does it matter?"

"Tell me where he is. I'll make sure he never lays a hand on you again."

"Why? So that Shannon can remember you as the man who beat her father, who broke the man the she adores?" she hissed.

"But..."

"But nothing. Get out of my house, Bishop. I don't know you. You are a stranger to me. My daughter and I are fine; we don't need you to fix our problems. All I want to do is get on with making dinner for my husband. For the man that I love. He will be home soon, and he won't want to see you here when he arrives."

"But I can help you."

"Help me? You can't even help yourself. If you could, you wouldn't feel the need to go around fixing other peoples problems. The little girl you knew is dead and gone, and she's never coming back. Whatever you're looking for here, you'll never find it. Now go. I don't want to see you again."

He made his way to the door, his heart descending in his chest to somewhere around his stomach. Outside, the cool air of the Mere did nothing to quell the feeling. He wandered down the steps of the house, and onto the village green. When he reached the small well, he winched up a bucket of water, cupping his hands to drink from it. It tasted peaty; Mere water always did.

He lowered the bucket back into the well, then sat down, his back against the stone, his mind ticking slowly as it digested everything that had just happened. Why had Rosie been so angry with him? For seven years he'd lived for the moment that he would see her again. In his mind, their reunion had been a happy time. In his mind, they'd hugged and talked for hours, and made daisy chain crowns.

A child was something he had not thought of. He hadn't even counted on her having a husband. The thoughts had never even crossed his mind, not even for a brief instant. Sometimes, girls of Mere villages married as young as fifteen, but in his mind, Rosie had always been the twelve year old girl he had last seen that day by the riverbank. What he had been expecting to find, now, was that girl, only taller, and in the shape of a woman. He hadn't expected the change.

It was, in a way, like the change that everybody in Redfallows Watch went through. No matter how pure and happy they started out, they eventually grew into suspicious, miserly people, like his father. Was it Redfallows Watch who made people become like that? Or was it the people who did it to themselves? Were other Mere villages the same? Was this how Merdelain had fallen from grace, when the elves inhabited it?

Maybe Rosie wasn't really angry with _him_. Maybe she was angry with her husband, for beating her, and with herself, for allowing it. Perhaps, by showing up, he had reminded her of the girl she had been. The girl she had repressed to survive, just as he had repressed the boy that he had been, to survive the Circle of Blades. But if that was the case, why wouldn't she leave here with him? Was it simply stubborn pride that was keeping her here? Or was it love? Did she truly love the man who beat her?

_Why_? Why did she let him hurt her? Why did she love him in spite of it? Why wouldn't she let him help her? All he wanted to do was to help her, to make something right. If she stayed here, she would be caught in his trap. She would die. He couldn't let her die. But he could make sure her house was spared the flames. He could arrange it so that she and her daughter would escape. But... her husband might escape too. And how far would they get, a heavily pregnant woman, a young girl and an abusive man? They would be shot by his overseers. Or worse, captured. And if Rosie was captured and told his overseers that he had been to see her, trying to warn her... they would kill him. If he didn't go through with his plan, they would kill him. If anybody escaped, they would kill him. But... perhaps, if all that burnt was empty houses... perhaps his overseers wouldn't know.

"So, she told you then, eh?" a deep male voice rumbled from above. It was the smith, standing over him.

"Yeah, she told me."

"Right shame about the family. Good folks they were. Hard-working. Even took in an orphan girl when her Da went crazy and killed her Ma. Real shame."

"You're in danger here," he said suddenly, his mind made up.

"You threatening me, boy?"

"No. Before I left Neverwinter, I overheard a conversation between Luskans. They said they were coming here to... steal and 'have fun'. That's why I came here, to get Rosie and her family and take her away before the Luskans get here."

"Then why ain't she stood out here with her bags packed and her kid on her hip?"

"She... won't leave," he said, his heart sinking even further.

"Well, if she won't leave, I don't see a reason to leave either. If a pregnant woman ain't afraid of Luskans, I ain't afraid either. Let them come, I say. Just last year we survived a horde of orcs. We can handle a few Luskans alright."

"But..."

"Bah, I ain't got time to sit here listening to your conspiracy theories, boy. I've got horses to shoe."

The man wandered off, back to his forge. Bishop stood, and gave the same story to the first person he came across. When the woman merely laughed, and said she didn't believe him, that Luskans would never be in Neverwinter in the first place, he moved on to another villager. Each time he was met with the same response; people either didn't believe him, or they thought the Luskans were no real threat. By the time night had started to set in, he hadn't been able to convince a single person to leave. Feeling defeated, he began to make his way back to his hiding place, where the oil was stored.

He walked for some time along what passed for a main road in the Mere. That meant it was a little less soggy than the rest of it, and it could take the weight of a horse and cart without subsiding to marsh water. Not far from his hiding place he heard voices, coming from the opposite direction. His first thought was that Marcin and the assassins were coming to look for him. But when he did not recognise the voices, and instead realised they were spoken with Mere accents, he hurried off the path and crouched down behind a row of gorse thickets. It was dark enough now that he could hide easily without being seen. Before long, the voices grew louder, and dim torchlight appeared further down the road.

"What are we doing this far out, Georg?" asked one voice. It sounded like a young male, probably of a comparable age to him.

"Galen said he saw a fair few lizardmen when he passed this way last week. I want to check it out, see their numbers for myself."

"Why bother?" asked another youth. They were close enough, now, that he could see them clearly in their torchlight. "This is miles away from West Harbor. They're hardly going to be a threat to us."

The boy who had first spoken and the boy who had spoken second glared at each other. There were three other youths with the man the first kid had referred to as 'Georg', as well as three older people with them. All of them wore chain shirts and matching trousers and boots, and all of them had longswords belted at their hips. This was, he realised, part of the fabled West Harbor militia. West Harbor was another village, deeper within the Mere. They tended to bear the brunt of lizardling attacks, mostly because the further into the Mere you travelled, the more lizard nests you found. Harbormen were said, even in his village, to be a tough, stubborn bunch. Their village had been razed to the ground by an enemy of Neverwinter known only as 'The King of Shadows' some fifteen years earlier; they had simply rebuilt it, re-tilled their fields, and carried on as if it had never happened.

"I bother, Ward, because lizardmen often migrate through the Mere, looking for new territory, taking over the territory of weaker lizard tribes. If Galen thought the lizards here worth mentioning, they're probably a considerable force. I'd like to find them before they find us."

"We'll be lucky if we can find anything in this flaming darkness," one of the older militia members grumbled.

"Ian's right, Georg," said another of the older members, this one a woman. "Why don't we head back for now? We're bound to run into Galen on the road, and he can show us exactly where he saw these lizards. Then we can escort him out of the Mere and check out the nest at the same time."

"Alright, alright, you've convinced me. We'll go back and speak to Galen. S'pose it's better than wandering around until we step on the lizardmen or walk into their camp."

As the militia turned and left, Bishop let his breath out slowly, unaware that he had been holding it. If the militia _hadn't_ have left, he could have used their presence as an excuse to delay his mission. The Circle members with him would not want _any_ witnesses, and five assassins would struggle to silence four experienced miltia-men and five youths in training. Well, they would struggle in an all-out fight, at least. If they wanted to silence the militia folks in the traditional assassin way, that would require following them back to their home village and dealing with them and their families. He suspected his overseers would not approve of a two-day trek through the Mere to wipe a second, better-prepared village with actual defences, from the map. No, this was supposed to be a surgical strike. In and out, then back over the border as soon as his test was complete. Not that it mattered; the militia were gone, now.

Why couldn't the people of Redfallows Watch be like the militia of West Harbor? Why couldn't they go as far as necessary to check for danger? Why couldn't they organise patrols and scouting parties? If they had, he might never have been taken. If they weren't so weak and helpless, he and the Luskans would never have been able to get this close to the village undetected. In a way, it was their own fault that this was happening. They were so preoccupied with their own tiny, insignificant lives, that they didn't even care about what was happening around them. Even the people of West Harbor cared more about lizardmen near Redfallows Watch than the people of Redfallows Watch did.

Even Rosie was guilty of it, now. She was right; the girl that she had been was dead. She had been dead since the moment she first let her husband get away with hitting her. In a way, he wasn't even doing anything wrong. The orcs would have destroyed Redfallows Watch last year, if it hadn't been for Neverwinter's army coming to protect them. Really, he was just finishing off the work that the orcs had started.

But... maybe... maybe he could leave Rosie's back door unaffected by the oil that would burn rapidly. Maybe she and Shannon could escape. And afterwards, when he had sprung his trap closed on his Luskan overseers, he could pick up her trail and follow her. She would be lost and afraid. She would need his help, then. She would _have_ to let him help her.

o - o - o - o - o

"Are you sure you set the oil correctly?" Marcin asked, as Bishop led him and the other three assassins back to Redfallows Watch.

"Of course."

"If you're wrong..."

"Don't worry. I've given you all separate viewing points. On the off chance that you see somebody escape, you can point him out to me, and I'll shoot him before he can run ten paces."

"So now you want you to do all your bloody work for you, too?" the grumpy assassin who had stepped in water grumbled.

"I was given to believe that this is _my_ mission, _my_ test."

"It is," said Marcin.

"Then the rest of you can shut up and do as I say, or go back and wait in the ruins. What's the point in being a bloody _overseer_ if you don't bloody _see_ anything?"

"You're getting too big for your boots again, boy," said the assassin. "I think coming home has put some fire in your belly."

"This isn't my home. This place means nothing to me. Less than nothing."

He continued on through the Mere, until at last they reached the village. He left the first assassin to climb a tree; its trunk and some of its branches had been doused in oil, and he had covered the scent by sprinkling evergreen oil around it. The evergreen smell was natural but overpowering; the assassin would never think twice about it.

He left the second assassin hiding between bales of hay that were standing on the outskirts of the village, ready to be brought indoors for the livestock. The hay bales, too, had been given a coating of oil, and the hay of the smell itself would obscure the less potent smell of the oil. The third assassin he positioned behind a cart, not far from the smith's forge. The cart had been recently repaired and painted, and again, the smell of the paint and varnish overpowered that of the oil that coated the ground around it.

That left only Marcin. Bishop took him to the one house that didn't actually need to be burnt; Davram's abandoned house. His old home. Naturally, he had used more oil on this house than on any other.

"This home's empty, been abandoned for years," he told the torturer. The man gave it a cursory glance, then nodded.

"Then this where I shall observe from. Where will you start the fire?"

"Do you see that barn over there?" he asked, pointing towards the large building. Marcin nodded.

"I'll start the fire inside it, then leave the back way. From there, it should quickly circle the houses, then move inwards, trapping everybody within it. The lucky ones will die in their homes. The rest will be herded towards the centre of the village, and they will die together. United in death, if not in life. When I'm done with the barn I'll circle round, so I can see if anyone tries to escape."

"Very well." Marcin climbed the stairs of the derelict house, then turned back to him. "You know, Bishop, I had my doubts about you, even after you accepted your place in life. I always thought that you'd give up before now, or that you wouldn't pass your tests. I'm not usually mistaken about such things. When I am, it's usually a pleasant surprise. I hope that you will be surprising me many times, in the days and years to come."

_Oh, I will surprise you,_ he thought, turning away and hurrying towards the barn. _But there will be only one surprise, and it is the last one you will ever experience._

Inside the barn, he brought out his tinder kit, starting a small fire with animal hair and straw for kindling. Then, he went and opened all the doors to the animal stalls. There wasn't any point in the animals being burnt alive, either. At the very least, the fleeing animals would add to the chaos, maybe give Rosie and Shannon a better chance to escape.

He returned to the fire and took pieces of stiff, burning straw from it. _I tried to warn them_, he thought. Then he walked to the entrance of the barn and dropped the straw. It hit the oil, which ignited immediately, racing out in two directions, encircling the entire village - including the watching places of the assassins. After tonight he would be a free man. The Circle would assume that he died in the blaze, along with the other assassins.

He, meanwhile, would take Rosie and Shannon far away from the Mere. Maybe he would take them to Waterdeep. Or perhaps out in the wilds, somewhere. He could work as a trapper, a hunter. He could put his skills to use. He could trade things for clothes and food and toys for Shannon and trinkets for Rosie. They would never have to worry about being hurt again. Rosie could go back to being the happy, smiling girl who wanted to be a princess and live in a castle, and he could go back to being the boy who had few cares in the world as long as he was with his friend. It would be like the past seven years never even happened. He would never have to kill anybody ever again.

When he was sure all the animals had fled the barn, mooing, baaing, neighing, oinking and clucking in a cacophony of fear, he too left the barn, sneaking out of the back and around to the side. Already the screaming had begun. He heard one of his overseers dying; the one in the tree, and was glad that the man was one of the first to go.

Something zipped through the darkness, striking the barn beside his head. He ducked as a second arrow followed the first, and put an arrow on his own bow, firing back into the darkness. There was a cry; his arrow had found its mark. He sighed in relief, and leant back against the barn.

Then another arrow flew at him, from a different direction. He didn't have time to dodge; it planted itself firmly in his thigh, and he dropped to the ground, his leg burning with pain. For a few moments he wavered between consciousness and unconsciousness, his mind unable to make up its mind which it wanted to be. Eventually he decided on the former, and he pulled himself up, bleeding, into a sitting position.

The smell of burning flesh permeated the air, the acrid smoke stinking his eyes, making it hard for him to see. People screamed all around; women screaming for their husbands, children screaming for their mothers, babies screaming as the raging fired melted the flesh of their frail bodies. The smell of burning flesh and wood char made his stomach turn, made him want to retch, but he suppressed the urge to empty his stomach. _He had tried to warn them_.

A large movement in the village caught his attention; one of the houses was caving in, its floor no longer supported by the burning foundations of the building. As he watched, house after house began to cave in, like dominoes crashing one after the other. He turned his gaze to Rosie's house, and he noticed the back door still shut. Nobody had come out of it yet, even though flames raced up the red curtains inside the windows, burning them to cinders. _Come on, get out!_ he willed her. But the door did not open, and as one of the windows blew out, he thought he could hear screams from the house; a girl screaming for her mother, and a mother screaming for her daughter. Then the house caved in, one more domino fallen, and he looked away at last. Rosie was not going to come out, and, injured as he was, he couldn't go in to get her. He couldn't help her.

The arrow in his thigh hurt terribly, and he broke the shaft above the entry point, crying out in pain as the head of the arrow tore further into his muscle. It didn't matter. His ambush had worked. His overseers hadn't seen it coming. Hadn't seen his trap until it was too late. And now they too screamed as the fires consumed them. Their screams echoed those of the dying townspeople. _He had tried to warn them._

There was a blur of motion at the corner of his eye, and he raised his bow, arrow nocked; but too late. Marcin shot first, and the Luskan's arrow hit him square in the chest, just above his heart. As the wood tore through his armour, his skin, his muscles, as the shaft was stopped by his ribs, he let his own arrow loose, and before he toppled to the ground he saw his arrow pierce Marcin's throat. He hadn't seen the torturer approach.

His body felt like it was burning. The arrow in his leg was dull pain compared to the agonising, searing shaft that moved in his chest whenever he drew a breath. As the screams around him finally ceased, and his vision start to blur, he tried to cease his own breaths. Breathing hurt too much. Life was pain. It always had been, and it always would be. But now something else beckoned him; a cessation of pain, of struggle, of conflict. Ahead of him lay death. Freedom.

He would die. In death he would be free. He could not be caged. Would not be. Nobody would ever have expectations of him ever again. Nobody would ever order him to kill. Nobody would ever order to things against his will. His 'family', his 'mentor', his Luskan 'friends'... they were gone, and those that lived still could not follow where he was going. His vision darkened further, and the chains of life, the ties and bindings, the strings on which he danced, fell away from him. He felt as if he was floating endlessly in the sky. Floating, he moved towards freedom.


	5. Companions Bishop 5

Companions

Bishop - V

Suddenly, something changed. He was no longer floating towards freedom. He was falling, hard and fast towards the ground! He fell, the wind whipping past him at a phenomenal speed, and as he fell he felt the chains of life encircle him once again, binding him to the world. To the life that he didn't want. To the body that was too painful to live in. To the person that he didn't want to be.

"Hey now, lie still. I'm trying to help you, and you're not making it any easier." The voice was light, almost jovial. He opened his eyes. Above him was a man, his sylvan features partially obscured by the smoke of the burning town. He tried to move again, to struggle, to get away from the man, but it was useless. He had lost too much blood. He was too weak. He was at the mercy of the stranger, and he didn't even have enough strength to reach for his dagger to stab the man. So he closed his eyes, and tried to die.

"Drink this," said the man. His felt a vial held to his lips, and tried to move his head away, but a hand was placed beneath his chin, holding his head in place as the contents of the vial were poured into his mouth. He coughed as the liquid trickled down his throat, but swallowed most of it.

"That's a pain-killer. I don't want to use any real healing potions on you until I've seen how many of these arrows you've collected." He tried to speak, to tell the man to go away, to let him die, but he could not force the air out of his lungs to power the words. Nor could he muster the energy to reach his dagger, to kill him. All he could do was lie there as he folded up his cloak and placed it behind his head to make him more comfortable.

"You'll have to bear with me on this. I'm going to cut through your shirt so I can get a better look at the arrow in your chest." He knew what the stranger was doing. He was explaining his actions because he thought he was frightened. He thought Bishop was afraid. He thought he needed... **comforting**. Stupid man. Those sorts of assumptions would be the death of him. If he lived through this, he would make sure of it. And then he forgot about thinking as the stranger cut through his shirt. The fabric pulled slightly on the arrow, and he cried out in pain.

"I'm really trying my best not to hurt you, but it would be easier if you kept still." He gasped, feeling a touch on his bare chest. The man's fingers tracked erratically over his skin, and he knew that he was tracing over old scars. Old lessons, courtesy of his Luskan teachers. He heard the man inhale deeply, but what that meant he did not know. Then he felt another vial held to his lips.

"Drink this." He did so slowly, one sip at a time. It tasted sweet, like honey. Honey was often used to mask something less palatable. Maybe it was poison. Maybe stranger had decided that his injuries were too grave, too serious. Maybe he was going to grant him a mercifully swift death. He hoped so. The irony was that he could've told the man which was the best poison to use, the least painful, the swiftest to act... if only he could summon the strength to speak.

"I'm going to cut the arrow out of you, but I can't do that while you're awake. That liquid will put you into a deep sleep. You won't feel a thing. Well, probably not." He tried to turn his head, to spit out the liquid - he didn't want to be saved! - but a hand was clamped over his mouth until he was forced to swallow. Then his vision began to darken, and the world fell away once again.

When his eyes fluttered open, it was to a stone roof some way above his head. Fire-shadows danced across the grey rock, bathing the ceiling in an orange light. He felt hard ground beneath him, and small rocks digging into his back through his shirt. If this was the Hells, it was only marginally more comfortable than he would've expected.

"Well I'm no healer, but I'd say you're going to live. You're tougher than I gave you credit for." He lifted his head slightly, noting in passing that his shoulder wasn't as painful now, and saw the man watching him from the other side of the cave. The same shadows that played across the ceiling danced across his face, and the flames reflected in his sylvan eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't make you more comfortable, but I only had one blanket."

He pulled back the blanket that covered him to examine the wound on his leg; he had been stripped to his breeches, which were stained red and stiff with dried blood. His skin, too, was patched red, and though the arrow hole in his thigh was now gone, the wound on his chest was not completely healed. A bandage, heavy with blood, was loosely tied over it, and as he tried to sit up he felt more blood drip from his chest.

"I'd stop moving if I were you. I don't have any more healing potions, and you've already lost more blood than I would've thought you had in you." Heeding the voice, though not wishing to make it seem like he was obeying an order, he slowly lowered his head back to the ground. It rested against something soft - probably the man's cloak, still. "I wanted to clean you up, but after seeing the state of the 'water' around here, I decided that exposing an open wound to it would only kill you. Do you have a name?" He ignored the stranger, focusing on the ceiling. "Hmm, if you don't talk, that means I get to name you myself. Let's see... you could be... Elandi. That means 'arrow' in elvish, you know. As in, what you were collecting in your body. Or perhaps... Maskan. That's fire, which probably would have killed you if the arrow hadn't. You're lucky I was passing through, by the way. I don't normally come out to these parts, but I was visiting kin, you could say. Now, I'm thinking you're owing me for saving your life. But that's something we can work out later, when we're back in Neverwinter, eh?"

o - o - o - o - o

The man's name was Duncan. Duncan had once been an adventurer. Now he owned a tavern in Neverwinter. Bishop learnt this much and more about his half-elven 'saviour' as they made their way slowly back to Neverwinter. Duncan had used all of his healing potions on Bishop, but it hadn't completely repaired the damage done to his body. Though the scar where Marcin's arrow had pierced his chest was almost gone, there was still underlying damage. The healing potions had not been strong enough to cure his injured leg, his chest, and his smoke inhalation. Though his leg was now fine, his lungs ached when he had to breathe deeply, and he knew that exerting himself would cause his chest to split open again. Duncan had told him as much.

Duncan had also said that he had seen everything that had happened in Redfallows Watch, that night. He had seen Bishop placing the assassins in their hiding places, and then seen him set fire to the village. He had seen him exchanging shots with the assassins, then take Marcin's arrow in the chest. He had heard the men, women and children screaming as they died. It was something that nobody should ever have to see or hear, Duncan said. He had also said that the authorities in both Neverwinter and Luskan would be interested in hearing about what happened to Redfallows Watch - the former because of its lost citizens, the latter because of its lost assassins. Then he implied that his silence could be bought, for a future price.

At first, Bishop hadn't cared. Rosie was dead. He had killed her. He wanted to die himself. He deserved it. He felt he _had_ to die. What was the point in living, without Rosie? What was the point in carrying on? For seven years he had lived simply for seeing his friend again. Now he had seen her, and she was gone. With her went his future, and the very thing he had been living for. On the way to Neverwinter, he barely ate. He barely drank. He barely spoke. He merely let Duncan lead him northwards, towards the city.

Then, they were there, in Neverwinter itself. Superficially, it was like Luskan. There were merchants and markets and nobles and taverns and minstrels and whores and children. But, looking deeper, he noticed differences. The merchants did not always require guards to protect them. The taverns were cleaner and safer. The children played happily, without fear of being snatched by private armies. True, Neverwinter wasn't a sparkling bastion of goodness; it had its darker aspects. For one, the Docks District was home to Bloodsailors, who were little better than pirates. But, overall, it was a big step up from Luskan.

The Sunken Flagon, Duncan's inn, was in the Docks District, not far from the wharf. Its usual patrons were sailors, thieves and smugglers; sometimes a single sailor could be all three at one time. The Watch tended to avoid the Flagon, and the area around it. This was bordering on Bloodsailor territory, controlled by Vengaul Bloodsail, and as long as the Bloodsailors didn't try to extend their influence further into the city, the rulers of Neverwinter seemed content to let them be.

Bishop spent his first few days exclusively in the Flagon, nursing his wounds and his anger. The latter was aimed at almost everybody he could think of; the Circle, Duncan, the people of Redfallow, even himself. He hated the Circle for forcing him to become a killer. He hated Duncan for not letting him die. He hated the people of Redfallows Watch for being deaf to his pleas, and he hated himself most of all. He hated himself for allowing things to go this far. He hated himself for not being strong enough to stand up to his overseers, for not having the courage to take Rosie away from the village despite her protests. And he hated himself for hating himself. Though he knew that this mess was his own fault, he also knew that it _wasn't_. He had had no choice in the matter. He had to pick a village. He had to pick a target. The only other alternative was refusing to take his last test. That choice would have resulted in his death, and he hated himself for not being brave enough to make that choice.

He didn't make a conscious decision to start living. As far as he was concerned, he had died that night in Redfallows Watch. What Duncan had brought back was the murderer that the Circle had created. The rest of him, his childhood, his hopes and his dreams, had died when Rosie had died. Now all that was left was an assassin in hiding. But even half-dead men needed things.

He struck up a casual acquaintance with two of Duncan's regulars, smugglers named Fenton and Weasel. They put him in touch with men who needed favours, and by doing favours for men who needed them he earned money. With the money he earned he bought things he needed; new clothes, leather armour, a new bow and ammunition. Duncan did not charge him for the room he slept in, but he _did_ charge him for food and drink, and this was also paid for by the jobs that he went on.

When he had saved up some money, Fenton told him of a place worth visiting; the Moonstone Mask. So, with his money in his pocket, he set off towards the city centre.

o - o - o - o - o

He stood outside the inn, looking at the paint peeling from the sign outside. It didn't look very promising, but Fenton had assured him that the establishment was well worth a visit. So, with nothing better to do, he stepped inside.

Two bouncers built like Tarrasques gave him the once-over, then permitted him to enter. He walked down the short corridor and came to the common room. It reminded him of home... he shook his head. No, it reminded him of Luskan. Luskan. Luskan was not home. He owed nothing to Luskan. He owed nothing to the Circle.

He watched the people around him for a moment. Though at first the room had reminded him of Luskan, he realised that it was only a superficial resemblance. These people were rowdy but only because of the alcohol they seemed to be consuming in massive quantities. They weren't being violent - the bouncers wouldn't allow it - and although the serving girls looked run off their feet, they weren't being indecently treated, they weren't being fondled and groped by the patrons.

"Ah, a new face," said a commanding voice. A tall woman took the seat opposite him, appraising him frankly. "I am Ophala, owner and proprietor of the Moonstone Mask."

"My name is... Bishop," he said. She cocked her head, a look of confusion passing across her face.

"You are from... Luskan?" she guessed.

"Not originally. I lived there for a while. Now I want a change."

"And well that you do! Their accents... so uncouth. Can you imagine a man whispering sweet nothings in your ear with a terrible accent like that?"

"I generally don't think of men whispering sweet nothings in my ear," he said flatly.

"Ahh, excuse me. Some men do... I wouldn't have judged you for it. So... what is your fancy?"

"I... don't know." One woman was pretty much the same as the next, as far as he was concerned. In Luskan, there were more whores than not. They lined the streets, plying their wares in all weather. Half of them would rob you blind whilst in the act. Their faces were masks, cold things on empty bodies and dead souls.

"Well, what do you like in a woman?" Ophala asked, obviously amused.

"A pulse."

"Haha. Yes, well, pulses are compulsory for my employees, I can assure you. But other than that, what do you like?"

"Why does it matter? I'm not here to find a wife or a soul mate or to hold in-depth conversations about the current state of political affairs. Just give me something female and a room for a couple of hours."

"Oh dear. Such a bitter and jaded young man," she tsked.

"I'm not here for a psychological evaluation either. Is this how you greet all your new customers?"

"Perhaps it should be. But as you have lived in Luskan you have no doubt picked up all sorts of bad manners and strange ideas about what is acceptable. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and I will explain a few things to you. If you feel that we can't accommodate you, and vice versa, you may leave."

"Fine."

"First of all, you don't pay for my girls, you pay for my rooms. I don't sell sex, I sell privacy. Every room comes with a girl of your own choosing, but what you do in the room is up to you. I have lonely old clients who want nothing more than a cuddle with a comely woman, and clients who want to burn oil all night. Secondly, all of my girls are individuals, with distinct personalities and skills. Cherry!"

A woman came flying across the room, dropping a curtsey to Ophala. Bishop looked at the woman; her brown hair was worked into curls, and apart from red paint on her lips, her skin was bare, free from make-up. The dress she wore was revealing, but also held the promise of more to come. Her warm brown eyes were framed by thick black lashes, and somehow she managed to portray innocence.

"Cherry has worked for me for a long time. She came from Waterdeep originally. She's a wonder at sensual massage. She can work knots out of almost any muscle imaginable, and she's very popular with my patrons. Crystal!"

Cherry was replaced by another woman; her long blonde hair was loose, falling down her back. Her dress was iridescent white, shining like mother of pearl. A circle had been cut out of the chest, showing the inner curve of her breasts and promising amble bosom.

"Crystal is my newest employee, and she's a local girl. Grew up right here in Neverwinter, in the Docks. Her speciality? She will drive you wild with her words; she talks dirtier than a sailor, but she will make you feel like you are the only man she has ever talked that way to. Thank you, Crystal, you may go back to your work. Do you see my point, Bishop?"

"Yes yes, they're all special and unique."

"Then you must tell me what you like, then I can match you to a girl who will suit your needs."

"Fine. I like Cherry. Massage... I could go for some of that."

"I am pleased. I will give you a room key. It is yours until morning. As I said, what you wish to do in there is none of my business, but you will respect my girls. If you hurt Cherry in any way, I will hurt you. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly."

Several hours later he dressed by the light of a lone candle, pulling on his boots and lacing them up. Behind him, Cherry stirred in the bed, her skin pale in contrast to the red silk sheets. She reached out for him, sitting up when she noticed him missing.

"You're not leaving, are you?" she asked. "You've paid for the room for the night."

"I'll be back. I just have to meet someone. It's a business arrangement that I couldn't get out of. Go back to sleep."

"Well, alright. Don't be too long, though. The beds get cold quickly."

He found the stairs easily enough and made his way down to the common room. It was empty, all of its patrons either upstairs in rooms or returned to their own homes. Only one bouncer remained by the door, his arms crossed in front of him.

"Where are you going?" Ophala asked, stepping out from behind the bar. Gods, didn't the woman sleep at all?

"I have to meet a business contact."

"Hmm. I don't usually allow my patrons to re-enter once they have left my premises, especially at such late hours. But since you are a new customer, I will allow it this once. Ander, let Bishop back in when he returns."

"Yes, Ophala," said the bouncer.

Out in the street the night air was cold and frosty. Cats scurried in the alleys, hissing at each other and at him. He ignored them, as he ignored the occasional drunks who vomited into the ditches by the side of the road. He kept his hood up and walked quickly but without seeming to rush. He knew where he was going; though he had only been in the city for a few days, the Docks district was familiar to him. It was where Duncan's tavern was, after all.

When he reached the Docks he took to the back alleys. They were actually a safer way to travel than by the main roads. Piracy and thievery ran rampant in this area. Bishop wasn't afraid of the pirates or the thieves - they no doubt had a healthy respect for him after he left several of their number dead in the gutters - but tonight he could not afford to be seen or recognised.

A lone figure waited at the meeting point behind two buildings. Cloaked and hooded just like him, the figure gestured impatiently. Bishop stalked over but did not lower his hood.

"You're late," his contact growled.

"I wanted to be sure I wasn't followed."

"Here's your payment." The figure reached into its pocket and Bishop tensed, ready for betrayal. But the man simply brought out a purse, handing it to him. Bishop hefted it, testing its weight, then opened it to briefly look inside.

"This isn't twenty gold," he said.

"There's an extra five in there. My employer wants to ensure your silence."

"Your employer is generous."

"Yes, he is. There will be another job for you, next week. If you want it."

"I will think about it."

"Meet me here, same time next week."

Bishop nodded and turned to make his way back out of the alley. One thing alone saved his life; one of the windows in the alley was dark, and in the moonlight it acted as a mirror. From the corner of his eye Bishop saw the reflection of his contact move, the man's arm striking rapidly towards his back. From his sleeve a switch-blade emerged, wickedly sharp and glinting in the cold light of the moon.

He spun, catching the man's arm in a block, then struck his attacker's neck with his elbow hearing the crack of cartilage. From his belt he took his own dagger and sank it into the man's stomach, dragging the blade so that it eviscerated him. A foul smell assaulted his nose as the man's intestines and bowels gushed out onto the floor.

With a curse, Bishop kicked the corpse. This was a mess that he really didn't need right now. Swearing, he bent down and began to drag the corpse from the alley. The docks was only a few paces away, and he tipped the body over the side, hoping the weight of his clothes would drag him down. He had already been gone too long, he didn't have time to weight the corpse down properly. Still, there was nothing to pin this death on him. Even if somebody had seen him, he had acted in self defence. Hurriedly, without a backward glance, he made his way back to the Moonstone Mask.

The next morning he was woken by loud banging on the bedroom door. Cherry groaned beside him and pulled the pillow over her head. Bishop pulled on his trousers and made his way groggily to the door. Expecting to find Ophala and one of the bouncers telling him it was time to leave, he blinked in surprise when he was faced with five Watchmen. Behind them, Ophala had a worried look on her face.

"I didn't hurt her. Ask her yourself, if you like," he gestured at the dozing woman.

"Do you know a merchant named Tallis?" one of the Watch officers asked him.

"Never heard of him," he yawned, hiding the panic rising in his chest. If the Watch tried to arrest him he wouldn't be able to fight them; there were too many, and he was unarmed.

"Well he's heard of you. And his body was just pulled from the Docks by a fisherman repairing his net."

"I've always felt that swimming in the ocean in winter is stupid," he quipped. "But what does this have to do with me?"

"We went to Tallis' shop. He had a diary. In it was a scheduled meeting with you last night." As the officer spoke, Bishop cursed the gods. The fool had actually written it down?

"I was supposed to meet a man, but I was told his name was Beran," said Bishop, improvising. "I've only been in Neverwinter for a few days and I was told that Beran might have some work for me, escorting caravans and whatnot. I don't know the details, whether he was shipping food or weapons or what. But I decided to cancel the meeting and spend my night here instead. Maybe this 'Beran' is the same man as your 'Tallis'... I wouldn't know. Like I said, I never met him."

"Right. And it's just a coincidence that he was killed on the night he was supposed to meet you. He probably tripped and gutted himself on his own blade, then jumped off the dock thinking it might cure him," the officer scoffed. "Lieutenant Carver, Lieutenant Brelaina, arrest this man." A man and a woman stepped forward, and Bishop took a step back.

"There really is no need for this," said Ophala. "I can guarantee that this man was here all night. It is a known fact that I don't let somebody back in once they've left."

"Sorry Ophala, but if he wasn't in your bed all night, you can't guarantee that he didn't leave."

"Then ask Cherry and my boys on the doors. I'm sure between them they'd notice if he'd left. Cherry?"

"No my lady, he didn't leave the room all night," said Cherry. She was sitting in the bed, the silk sheet wrapped around her body, hiding what little modesty she actually possessed.

"There, you see? Now why don't we go downstairs and double check with Ander?"

"Hmph. No need," the officer scowled. "One witness is all it takes to save a person from the gallows these days." The Watchmen left, obviously none too happy at having lost their only lead on a murder case. No doubt they would actually have to do some real investigative work now. They might even find somebody to pin it on, if they looked hard enough.

"Thank you, Cherry. You may go and get dressed," said Ophala. The young woman scurried out, the sheet of the bed still wrapped around her body. After she had left, Ophala closed the door and leant back on it.

"I suppose this is the point where I thank you and you blackmail me for silence?" he said bitterly.

"Something like that. I'm curious... why did you kill Tallis?"

"I didn't know it was him. I thought I was meeting one of his guards. The idiot was just supposed to pay me for a job I did for his boss... he thought he would turn the tables and pulled a blade on me. If I'd known the man I was meeting was actually Tallis I would have disposed of the body more carefully."

"What job did you perform for him?"

"He wanted a message delivered to somebody."

"Ah, say no more," Ophala said with a knowing smile.

"So. What's your price? You want somebody dead? Injured? Protected? I'm not too good at protecting. People who spend too much time around me tend to end up dead."

"I get to know a great many people, in my line of work."

"I bet."

"It is not what you think, I can assure you. These people are often rich and influential..."

"And very into their privacy?"

"Very much so. They are always looking out for... help. They often need things doing that they cannot do themselves. And they pay well. Because I sell privacy, they often come to me for a place to discuss their business."

"Right. Because who expects a man who comes to a whore-house to do anything but screw cheap women?"

"We are not a whore-house and my women are not cheap, but you have the right idea. For introducing you to men who need jobs doing, I will require only a modest fee, a small percentage of any money you will undoubtedly earn. In return, you will make a lot of money and you will not be locked away in Neverwinter's gaol. You do not need to take every job offered to you, only hear them out. It will all be done anonymously. You will not know the men you are meeting, and they will not know you. How does that sound?"

"I've had worse offers," he admitted. Ophala was obviously an intelligent and very capable woman. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to cross her.

"I am glad. It just so happens that I know of somebody who had been cheated by Tallis in the past. He was looking for a... message... to be delivered to the merchant. Since you have already done just that, I will have payment brought here for you."

He grunted in acknowledgement. He wasn't at all surprised by her words; had she lived in Luskan, Ophala would probably have gotten rid of every Pirate Lord by now and started running the place herself.

"By the way... how did you find Cherry?" she asked, poised with the door open.

"She has a pulse. I've no complaints."

Smiling, Ophala left the room and he sank on to the bed. As far as blackmailing went, this could be worse. At least Ophala was honest. At least he knew what she wanted from him. Now, if only he could get rid of Duncan.

o - o - o - o - o

"I'm glad you decided to come," said Ophala.

"You know you're the one woman I'd never stand up," Bishop replied.

"You're a terrible liar, Bishop. You'd stand me up in a heartbeat if you didn't need the money so badly. But I will forgive you. I have somebody very important for you to meet."

She took him behind the bar, opening the door to the back rooms. He was familiar with them, by now. One of the rooms was small, little more than a booth screened off so that two people sitting on opposites sides of the booth could not see each other. There was another door, on the other side of the room, behind the screen. It was the door that certain customers could use to access this room without needing to be paraded through the common room. It ensured their privacy.

"He's here," Ophala said, indicating for him to sit on the chair, though he knew the way this worked by now. Ophala left, closing the door behind her. He turned his attention to the screen. It was a combination of wood and thick material, and he could make out the indistinct, shadowy form of a figure seated behind it. No doubt the figure was likewise looking through the screen at him, trying to work out who he was and how much he was worth.

"Ophala tells me you're good. That you've had experience of moving around the wilds," said the man at last. It was a voice he had never heard before, but he immediately placed the man as somebody past the prime of his life. His voice was not yet shaky with age, but it didn't have the crisp, clear confidence of a younger individual.

"That's right," he replied.

"I need something fetching from near the Luskan border. I need somebody who can act with discretion. I offer five hundred gold, for this task."

_Five hundred gold!_ This man was either rich or insane. What could possibly be worth five hundred gold? That was more money than Bishop had ever seen at any one time in his life. Though, when Ophala was finished with him, it would be four hundred gold. Her 'modest' fee was twenty percent of his earnings.

"Tell me about the job," he said, keeping his voice flat to hide the excitement he felt at earning so much money."

"You will travel to Port Llast and meet a contact I have there. The contact will take you to the items I need bringing to Neverwinter. Disguising yourself as a merchant, you will hire a horse and cart and bring my items to a warehouse in the Docks district. Once at the warehouse, you will be paid."

"Why don't you just have your contact bring your things here?"

"Because the contact does not know where the items are being received... and you will keep it that way. If you are asked, you don't know - you're simply another link in the chain. But if you attempt to discern what the items are, if you open their containers, you will not be paid even a penny."

"I'll take the job," he said, leaning forward towards the screen. "Give me the details."

"Travel to the Alliance Arms Inn, in Port Llast. There, a woman named Malin awaits you. Give this to her, to identify yourself as my agent." Something was thrown over the screen, and he caught it one-handed on its descent. Holding it up to the light, he immediately knew what it was; a ruby, small and flawless. "You will need to give her this, as well." A bag of coins followed the ruby, and this he caught with both hands. It was heavy... heavy enough to contain five hundred gold easily.

"When do you want the delivery by?"

"Within the next ten days. That should be more than enough time for you to get to Port Llast and back."

"Where's this warehouse?"

"The Many-Starred Cloak have a small laboratory on the north side of the Docks. Do you know the area?"

"Vaguely."

"The warehouse is behind their lab."

"Pretty risky place to stay."

"Because nobody would be foolish enough to have underhanded dealings in the shadow of the Many-Starred Cloak, their eyes often fall further afield."

"Is there anything else I need to know?"

"No. You have all the details you need. Remember, be at the warehouse before ten days is up, and do not open my merchandise."

There was the scraping sound of a chair being pushed back, and the figure left the room through the door on his side of the screen. Bishop waited for a moment, then stood and walked to the door, stepping out and closing it behind him. Then he made his way back to the common room.

Only ten minutes had past since he had entered the back room, and the faces in the brothel's main area were still the same. He found himself a chair at an empty table, and waited. None of the serving girls approached him. They knew him now by sight - and some of them knew him in other ways - and they knew that he was not here for them tonight. They ignored him entirely, and at last Ophala herself took the seat opposite him, placing a glass of wine on the table in front of it. He lifted it up and sniffed it, its fruity aroma tickling his nose. He dipped his tongue into it, tasting the flavour.

"What's the occasion?" he asked, putting the glass back on the table.

"Your new five-hundred gold job."

"Who was he?"

"You know that's not the way it works," she said with a secretive smile. He nodded. He hadn't expected her to tell him anything. It was part of the agreement. He wouldn't be told anything about his employer, and his employer wouldn't be told anything about him. It protected Ophala's clients' privacy, and his own well-being.

"I'll leave in the morning," he said, taking another sip of the wine. It was better than anything she had served him before. "I'll be back within a week, and you'll get your money after that."

"In the morning, hmm? Does that mean you're looking for company tonight?"

"No. To be honest, I'm bored with what you have."

"My girls no longer satisfy you?"

"They're just not what I'm looking for."

"Tell me, Bishop... how old are you?" she asked, leaning back in her chair.

"I dunno... twenty, maybe," he said with a shrug.

"Most men of your age would give anything to spend a night with one of my girls. Most could only dream of it. And yet you're already bored of them? What is it exactly that you're looking for, if you get bored of a woman after only one night?"

He shrugged again. The only thing he had ever wanted was to return home, to spend his time with Rosie and Scarlet once more, to return to a time when he had few cares and worries.

"Ah well, when you figure it out, let me know. Maybe I can find it for you."

"I doubt it."

"We'll see. So, what did he want?"

"You know that's not the way it works," he smiled.

"From the price, I'd guess that he wants a message delivered to somebody _very_ influential."

He met her searching gaze squarely, without even blinking. She would find nothing in his eyes; no confirmation, no denial. This was also part of the bargain; she wasn't to know the details of the jobs. All she did was provide a place to discuss business. When it was obvious she wouldn't probe him further, he downed the rest of the red wine and stood.

"I'll see you in a few days," he said.

"Take care. Don't trip over your own blade."


	6. Companions Bishop 6

Companions

Bishop - VI

It was evening in Port Llast, though the sun was still some distance above the horizon, casting warm orange light over the town. From his vantage point in the tree line, away from prying eyes, Bishop caught sight of people moving between the buildings. Some stopped to talk, others conversed with merchants, and from their gestures and expressions he guessed that they were haggling for goods. More of the townsfolk were present at the south end of the town, where cattle were being penned up for the night, ready for the morning's market.

A plethora of smells reached his nose from the settlement; fresh bread baking in the homes of the townsfolk. Pork, beef and chicken being roasted over fires. Vegetables being boiled in pots. Cider and ale being brewed in a brewery on the edge of town. Cakes cooling on table-tops. Other smells were less savoury; the odour of manure, spread onto the farmers' fields, was palpable. Old food rotted on a refuse pile down-wind of the settlement, and this attracted carrion creatures; crows, rooks, ravens, magpies, stoats and foxes. To hide the less pleasant smells, he crushed one of the branches of a pine tree beside him in his hand, releasing the aromatic scent of the needles. It was a welcome relief.

At last he left the trees, following the road down to the town. As he walked, his heart began to pound in his chest and his skin broke out in a cold sweat. In Neverwinter, just one face amongst thousands, he had been safe. Nothing had made him stand out. But Port Llast was different. It was smaller. People here paid attention to strangers, and they remembered faces. What if there was somebody here who might recognise him from Luskan? Some merchant or traveller or guard or...

He took a deep breath, trying to still his thoughts. It wouldn't do to work himself up over this. The chances of there being someone here who could recognise him from Luskan were very, very slim. And even if he was recognised, it wasn't like he advertised the fact that he was a killer every time he left the safe-house. If anybody asked, he was simply a merchant's guard or adventurer fallen on hard times.

The town was small enough to have only a single tavern, and he found it easily. It was the busiest building, attracting patrons even as some left it on unsteady legs. Quiet music spilled out from its open doorway; he recognised a flute and at least two different stringed instruments from the sounds alone. He waited for a moment, allowing a couple of men to leave the premises, then entered, his heart still disquiet in his chest.

He didn't like dealing with people. He would be the first to admit that he had very few people-skills at all. Assassination wasn't a social vocation - at least, not for very long. For most of his young life he had spent his time with only a small group of people; his father, Davram, Rosie and Scarlet. Since the age of twelve, his only companions had been the other assassin students, his tutors, and occasional whores. And though his tutors had given him an excellent education, they had skimped on one of the most important lessons; social interaction. Assassins weren't required to be sociable. There wasn't really much point in getting friendly with the person you were going to kill.

He knew that some things were not considered socially acceptable; killing people in plain sight of others, for example. Threatening folks also tended to be frowned upon. Hitting kids when they didn't deserve it, especially when they weren't _your_ kids, was something else to avoid. Leaving the bar or brothel without paying for what you'd ordered was also taboo. But everything else was fairly ambiguous. He decided that, for the moment, he should try to keep a low profile, to err on the side of caution.

He entered the tavern and took a brief look around. It was filled with people, men and women alike. Most of the tables were taken, and more people were lounging against the bar, chatting with the barkeeper as he pulled tankards of ale from the barrels behind the counter. Two serving girls hurried to and fro, clearing away empty glasses from tables, bringing fresh drinks to thirsty patrons.

At the far side of the room he spied an empty table, and strode across the floor to take a seat at it, propping his bow against the wall beside him. Waiting for one of the serving girls to bring him a drink, he looked around the room, professionally assessing its occupants. Four men sitting at one table were clearly merchants; their fingers were adorned with jewelled rings which flashed brightly as their hands moved in animated discussion. He couldn't hear their words over the music being played, but he guessed they were bartering.

A group of farmers and their wives were seated along a row of tables that had been placed together. Their words he _could_ hear; they were discussing this year's crop, the weather, their children, their cattle... small, every-day things that meant nothing to him but were these peoples' entire worlds. A lone woman was sitting in a chair beside the fireplace, curled up with a book in her lap. He wondered if she was Malin. She was the only person in the entire Inn who was sitting alone, not taking part in any of the discussions, not even paying attention to the music which two couples were dancing to.

One of the serving girls placed a glass of ale on the table in front of him and disappeared without a word. He took the glass and tasted its cool contents, drinking as much to relax himself as to slake his thirst. The minstrels, meanwhile, changed to a different song, one that was more lively. The music tickled his memory, giving him a strong feeling of déjà vu. He'd heard the tune somewhere else before, he was sure of it... he just couldn't place it.

"You're in my seat, boy," said a voice behind him. He silently cursed himself for being so absorbed in the song. If he'd been paying more attention, he would have heard someone approaching him. To mask his anger at himself, he took a calm sip of his drink.

"I didn't see your name on it," he replied.

"You obviously didn't look hard enough, then. Now, I'll give you five seconds to get out of my seat."

"Jones, just get a different bloody seat for tonight," called the man behind the bar. It was then Bishop became aware that the rest of the common room had gone somewhat quiet. Though the minstrels still played, oblivious to the world around them, all conversation had ceased, all eyes turned towards him. Inside, he bristled at the attention this fool was bringing to him.

"You ignoring me, boy?" the man behind him asked, grabbing the collar of his shirt.

He reacted instinctively, bringing his elbow back to connect with the man's solar plexus. There was a muffled grunt of pain, and when the grip on his shirt was released he stood and turned, grabbing the man's hair and slamming his head into the wall. His opponent slumped to the floor, and he clenched his fists, ready in case anybody else stepped forwards. Nobody did.

"Bah, why didn't you keep your mouth shut, Jones?" the barkeep grumbled. He left the bar and stepped to the unconscious man on the floor, looking at the blood flowing from his nose before looking up at Bishop. "I hope you're not going to punch any of my other patrons, stranger."

"Only the ones that lay a hand on me," he warned.

The barkeep nodded and dragged the unconscious man away, behind the bar and out of a door, to some other room. The mood had apparently been killed someone; some of the farmers left, their wives on their arms giving him disapproving glares. The merchants watched him for a moment, the went back to their bartering. The musicians, meanwhile, were still playing their jaunty tune.

He didn't bother to sit back down. Instead, he took his ale to the fire, standing over the lone woman in her chair.

"Are you Malin?" he asked.

"I'm not buying what you're selling, or selling what you're buying." She didn't even do him the courtesy of looking up from her book as she replied, and his anger grew. He snatched the book from her hands and turned it to look at the title. It was written in elvish, but learning how to read, write and speak basic elvish had been one of his lessons. There were many influential elven citizens within Luskan, after all. Elven citizens who might need removing from life, and their potentially incriminating documents removing from their possession. The Circle had stopped short of teaching dwarvish, but a basic understanding of the elven language was mandatory for all of its students. From the title, he guessed this to be a history book. A book about famous elven places; Evermeet, Evereska and Suldanessellar, amongst others.

The woman looked up when he took her book, her eyes glowing soft violet in the firelight. It startled him for a moment. Then he noticed her elongated ears and her fine features. She was a half-elf, he realised. He should have noticed that earlier, but he hadn't been paying enough attention.

He tossed her book into the fire and took the small ruby from his pouch, holding it out to her. Instead of taking it, she merely stared at him, her eyes boring calmly into his.

"That book cost me a lot of money. You'll be repaying me for it." Then she took the ruby from him and pocketed it. "I think you'll have something else for me, too?"

He pulled up a chair, sitting down beside her. Though there was nobody nearby to overhear their words, he didn't want to take any chances.

"Show me the goods. Then you'll get your money."

The woman gestured for one of the serving girls to bring her another drink, and waited until the woman had left. Then she took a long sip from whatever she was drinking - he could tell immediately that it wasn't ale or wine - and gave a small, happy sigh.

"Tomorrow," she said at last.

"Why not now?"

"Do you think I'd be foolish enough to bring them here?" she asked, her voice scornful. "They're hidden somewhere safe."

"Where?"

"Somewhere only I can find them, so don't go having thoughts about double-crossing me and keeping my payment for yourself."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Do you know what's it is? What we're..."

"Smuggling? Depends," she shrugged. "Who's your contact?"

"I dunno... like you, I'm being met by someone who's taking them off me. Where did they come from?"

"That would be telling."

"Fine. I don't care. As long as you take me to wherever they are and don't try pulling any tricks, you'll get your money."

"Meet me here tomorrow at dawn," she said, finishing her drink and standing. "I'm going to turn in for the night."

"And where am I supposed to sleep?"

"Don't know, don't care. Ask Falgor if he's got any more rooms. If not, find somewhere to camp out."

She left, and he was left alone with his drink. He should have known this bloody job wouldn't be easy. Still, it had only been three days since he had been given his task... he still had seven to complete it in. More than enough time to get back and get paid. The smell of burning paper tickled his nose for a moment, and he turned his head to watch the last of the book being consumed by the fire.

o - o - o - o - o

"Where are we going?" he asked, following Malin along the road out of Port Llast. She was going north, in the opposite direction to Neverwinter. Whatever she had hidden, it couldn't be _too_ far away. It was so big that he'd had to hire a horse and cart that very morning, simply to bring the items from where the half-elf had hidden them.

"Duskwood," she replied.

"What?" He tugged on the horse's reins, encouraging it to trot beside him as he caught up to the woman. Behind the horse, the cart bounced up and down on the road. "The Duskwood is in Luskan territory," he said angrily.

"That's why we didn't leave last night. They have scouts patrolling their borders. Don't worry, I've managed to sneak past them a dozen times. We're not going that far into Duskwood anyway."

"You should have told me last night! This changes things."

"Oh? What, exactly, does it change?" she asked, her violet eyes calm and amused. He had no suitable answer. He couldn't tell her that he was on the run from Luskan, that he was an assassin in hiding, that if he was caught he would be made an example of. "Why do you think we were paid so much to do this? Of course it's dangerous. You can't smuggle things over the border _without_ it being dangerous."

"If you get us caught, girl, I'll put an arrow through your head," he growled.

"Relax. What's your name, anyway?"

"Bishop."

"Well, Bishop, you'll just have to learn to trust me. I know the Duskwood like the back of my hand, and getting past the patrols is pretty easy as long as you keep your eyes open."

"Just take me to the bloody merchandise," he said, dropping back again. He had no desire at all to converse with the woman, and the sooner she learnt that, the better off they'd both be.

She seemed to get the message. She was silent as she led him steadily north. Though he had never been inside the Duskwood before, he had heard much about it during his lessons. It was said to be an enchanted, bewitched place, protected by spirits and giant animals. Only a fool cut down a tree in the Duskwood; to do so was to raise the ire of its protective spirits.

Morning turned to midday, and then to afternoon, and as the green conifers began to give way to tall, gold and grey deciduous trees, he knew that he was truly entering the Duskwood. Occasional spade-shaped leaves fell from the trees above him, gentle breezes rustling through the branches. In the distance, he thought he could hear soft singing; a woman's voice intertwined with calm, comforting sounds. A babbling brook, the wind whispering through the canopy of the forest, songbirds singing a chorus. The music called to him. He wanted to lose himself entirely within it.

A hand on his arm broke him out of his trance, and he looked down into Malin's violet eyes.

"Don't listen to it," she warned, starting back along the trail.

"What is it?"

"Nymphs. Or dryads. Possibly both. They sing to ensnare the minds of men foolish enough to enter their woods. Even the Luskan patrols don't come often into the Duskwood. They lose too many men, so they tend to stick to the forest proper."

"And _this_ is the place you chose to hide the items?"

"Of course. Where else could be safer?"

"What do they want? The nymphs or dryads or whatever."

"To toy with you. Sometimes they like to seduce mortals. Sometimes they like to kill them. Just stick close to me and you'll be fine."

"Great. How far do we have to go?"

"Not far. We're almost there."

For another half an hour she made him walk, and then she stopped him in the middle of a clearing. There was nothing at all special about the clearing... it was just like the rest of the forest around him, and it immediately put him on his guard. He shifted his grip on his bow to grasp it more firmly.

"We're here," she smiled.

"I don't see anything."

"Of course you don't. I wouldn't have left the goods out where they could be discovered or damaged by animals or the elements."

"So where did you hide them?"

She bent down, using her hands to move fallen leaves aside, exposing bare soil. Then she went to the cart, which had barely managed to make it through the narrow trails, and took two shovels from the back of it. One she threw to him, and the second she kept for herself.

"Great. You buried it," he sighed. Together they began to dig down into the earth, and he was grateful that it was soft and loose; it was quite easy to dig through it, but by the time his shovel finally hit something hard his trousers and long shirt-sleeves were black with dirt.

"This is it," she said, tapping the end of her own shovel on the hard wood beneath them. Whatever it was, it was big. "We need to widen the hole, so we can bring them up."

"Them? There's more than one of these crates?"

"There's three of them, and they're heavy. That's why you need the cart."

"And you're sure you don't know what's inside them?"

"Even if I knew, it wouldn't tell you. Which reminds me; I want my money now. I've brought you to them, I'll help you get them in the cart and back to Port Llast, but I'm not lifting a finger to help you without my payment."

He tossed the purse to her and she opened it, tipping out gold coins onto her hand. She nodded in satisfaction and put the purse in one of her pockets, then picked up her spade and began shovelling dirt once more. By the time they'd opened up the hole wide enough to bring the crates out, they were three feet below the level of the ground. Malin had, he realised, stacked the crates on top of each other; the easiest way of storing them, though it would make getting the bottom crate up difficult. It was probably a good two feet or more below the top crate.

They worked steadily throughout the afternoon, and by the time they had finally gotten the last crate onto the cart, it was almost dark. There was clearly no question of them travelling further that day, so he unhitched the horse and hobbled it so it couldn't wander. After attaching a nose-bag filled with oats to the animal's head, he turned back to Malin, who had prepared a generous feast of bread, cheese, cured ham and water.

"We'll camp here for the night and make our way back to Port Llast in the morning," she explained as he helped himself to bread and meat.

"Can't we have a fire?"

"Not a good idea, out here. It puts the forest's guardians on their edge. Besides, it's warm enough to sleep without one, and as long as we don't harm the forest, the wild beasts won't harm us."

"How long have you been doing this?" he asked.

"What, smuggling, or traversing the paths of the Duskwood?"

"Both."

"The former, not long. The latter... all my life. I was born not far away, on the northern side of the Duskwood. My mother lived with her people, a small enclave of wood elves. She fell in love with a Luskan man and was outcast because of it."

"Where is she now? Why aren't you still with her?"

"I don't know where she is. After I was born, she left me with my father. He said that she returned to her people, to beg their forgiveness, asking them to take her back. But she knew that they wouldn't accept me, so she left me behind. My father took me to his village, not far away from the city, but I hated it. I ran away many times, to the Duskwood, where I was happiest. One day, he simply didn't bother to come and find me. So here I am. What about you? Where do you hail from? Your accent is strange to my ears... though not entirely unpleasant."

"It doesn't matter. My home is gone. Luskans killed everybody I knew. So here I am."

There was no more talking after that. One by one the stars graced the darkening sky, and they finally took to their bedrolls. Malin assured him that they didn't need to keep a watch, that the spirits of the forest would watch over them, and he chose to believe her. After all, she had lived in this place all her life. She knew it intimately.

He closed his eyes, letting his body relax as it warmed inside his blanket. And far away, in the distance, he thought he heard somebody singing to him.

o - o - o - o - o

When green conifers began to appear between the unnaturally pale trees of the Duskwood, Bishop finally let himself relax. Now he didn't need to worry about nymphs trying to hypnotise him with their songs, or dryads trying to lure him away from Malin.

He glanced at the woman on the path in front of him. Her dark blonde hair was tied back behind her head, exposing her ears which were long and slender, though shorter than a true-blooded elf's. Her body was tall and slender, and she moved gracefully, her leather armour hugging her curves. The short bow she carried was strung, ready to be called into action at a moment's notice. Though she was supposed to be on guard, there was a faraway look in her eyes, and he could tell she was day-dreaming.

Something thudded into the side of the cart beside him, and he stared at the arrow for a second before realisation dawned on him. He dropped to the floor, crawling underneath the cart to emerge on the other side. An arrow, meanwhile, was brought rapidly up to his bow, and he aimed weapon bow towards the trees from where somebody had shot at him. An arrow went flying from behind him, and he knew that Malin had taken shelter behind a nearby tree.

More arrows flew out from the trees ahead of him, and he tried to calculate their trajectories, to pinpoint their origins. When he thought he had one, he released his bowstring, and was rewarded with the sound of a body hitting the floor. Twice more he and Malin struck opponents, and at last no more arrows were forthcoming. Slowly, with an arrow ready to fly, he made his way towards the trees, grateful that the horse, though snorting in fright, hadn't been hit.

In the thick stand of trees he found three men, two of them dead, the third with an arrow in his thigh. When he saw Bishop, the man struggled, dragging himself along the ground to his bow which lay not far away. As the man reached out for his weapon, Bishop put an arrow through his hand. The stranger screamed in pain, the arrow pinning his hand to the floor. Unable to move, he was helpless. Quickly, Bishop drew his knife and advanced towards the screaming man, bending over him to pull back his head and slit his throat.

There was a small sound behind him, and he spun on the spot, his bloody knife ready to strike out again. But it was only Malin. Watching him, she slowly released the pressure on her bow, taking her arrow from it and putting it back in her quiver. Her face was still calm, still unconcerned, and he felt anger flowing through his veins, gripping his body with fingers of fire.

"We almost died because of you!" he said, waving the knife at her. "You were supposed to be watching for ambushes but instead you were away with the bloody fairies."

"Calm down. We're not dead. We weren't in any real danger... there was only three of them."

"I don't care whether there were three or three hundred. It only takes one arrow!"

As he ranted, he realised something; for the first time since he had been brought back by Duncan, he didn't want to die. He had spent weeks moping, being angry, wishing he had died too in Redfallows Watch. Coming this close to being killed... it wasn't something he wanted anymore. Sure, life was pretty shit, but it was marginally better than being dead.

"Come on, let's go," she said, turning her back on the corpses. "We need to find a stream... my water skin's empty, and I think the horse needs a drink."

He didn't like the way she ordered him around, but he bent and wiped the blood from his dagger on the clothes of one of his victims, then followed her back to the cart. He realised she was right; his own canteen had only a few drops of water left inside it, and the horse was starting to flag, tired by the day of walking and the shock of being shot at. As Malin started along the path again, he took hold of the horse's reins and led it forward.

It didn't take long for her to find water. There was a small, still pool of it where a small river flowed suddenly into a deeper area before travelling on its way once more. With the cart unable to get down to the riverbank, he was forced to unhitch the horse again and lead it down to the water, letting it drink its fill while Malin put her bow on the floor and leant forwards to fill up her canteen.

A smile played across his lips. He would teach the harpy to order him around like a lackey. Quietly, he approached her from behind, and in one swift movement he placed his foot on her back and pushed her forward, into the water. She disappeared beneath the surface of the pool for a moment, before appearing with her canteen still in her hand. The glare she gave him should rightfully have frozen him on the spot. He simply laughed.

"Yes, I'm sure that was hilarious for you," she said, hauling herself out of the river, dripping from head to toe. "Just think yourself lucky that I have a change of clothes on the cart. Now, help me with this." She turned around. At first he didn't know what she meant. "The laces," she sighed. "They're leather. That means they'll now be stiff."

He stepped towards her, reaching for the laces of her shirt as her own fingers worked at the buckles of her armour. Her hand moved too rapidly for him to react; she grabbed his wrist, pulled him forward over her hip, and he landed in the water, sending up a huge wave that washed over both banks. He held his breath as the cold water shocked his body, and for a moment he didn't know which way was up and which was down. Then he remembered to open his eyes, and saw light below him. He turned in the water, kicking himself up towards the surface.

He took a deep breath when he crested the surface of the pool, and heard Malin laughing from the bank. When the water cleared from his eyes, he saw her bent double with laughter. She was lucky that he'd put his bow down before she threw him in, otherwise he would have been _very_ unhappy.

"Funny," he growled as he dragged himself out of the river.

"Well, you deserved it. Now, fetch the horse before you frighten it away." She took her bow from the ground and made her way back up to the cart. Fighting back another snarl at her commanding tone, he grabbed hold of the horse's reins and led it back to the cart, hitching it to the traces once more.

Stepping around to the back of the cart, he found Malin in a partial state of undress. Her shirt, shoes and trousers had been removed, leaving her in her underwear. On the cart in front of her was her change of clothes, warm and dry, ready to be donned. It made him wish he'd brought a change too. All he had was his bedroll and the clothes that he wore now.

He followed the movement of her hands as she began pushing water off her body; down her arms, her flat stomach, the tops of her legs, right the way down to her toes. When she saw him watching, she stopped in mid-stroke and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What's the matter? Haven't you seen a woman before?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Uh-huh," she said with a smirk. "I bet you haven't. That's probably why you're so pissed-off and angry all the time. All that pent-up frustration... must be difficult to live with. I'm guessing you wouldn't know what to do with a woman."

"Trust me, I have no problems with women. I've known what to do for a long time."

"Really? Show me, then."

Simply to wipe the bloody smirk from her face, he stepped forwards, wrapping one arm around her lower back, his other hand reaching behind her head to twine her hair around his fingers. He pulled her head back slightly, exposing her throat, then kissed across her neck, using his lips and his teeth to nip at her skin. His other hand, wrapped around her waist, he lowered beneath her sodden knickers, running his palm across her buttocks. A moan escaped her lips as he pulled her body against his, and his own body responded to her quiet gasps of pleasure.

Her fingers moved deftly to unfasten the buckles of his armour; she seemed to know where each was without even having to look. His armour dropped to the floor, and he let it lie there, his attention completely taken by the softness of her skin, the feel of her full curves beneath his hand. She reached one hand up, guiding his hand that held her hair instead to her breasts, and he cupped them, one at a time, through the material of her brassiere. Her mouth found his, her warm tongue probing, exploring, as her fingers worked on his belt buckle. His trousers followed his armour, and so did his shirt. It didn't take long for him to strip her underwear from her smooth, damp body, and she removed his, exposing him entirely to the warm morning air.

For a moment he was lost, and disguised his uncertainty by lowering his head to her neck once more, kissing along her throat and her jaw. She shivered beneath his touch, her body quivering in anticipation, and he knew he wouldn't be able to put her off forever. In truth, he had never done this without a comfortable bed before. A bed was pretty much mandatory, in his eyes. But all he had was a cart, with several long crates on it. It would have to do, he decided.

He lifted her up onto the cart, and then on top of the coffin-like crates, laying her down on her back, hoping that this wouldn't result in too many splinters. Still, she seemed more than eager to proceed, reaching down to guide him into her, as if she really did believe that he didn't know what to do.

For a time he lost himself entirely in the soft touch of her skin against his body, in the feeling of himself filling her with each thrust, in the moans of ecstasy that came unbidden from her lips. Had a Luskan patrol found them, they would have found them easy pickings. But nobody appeared from the forest, drawn on by the ragged cries of pleasure and moans which grew faster in tempo as each of them neared climax. So lost was he that he barely even noticed when her fingers tensed, her nails digging into his skin as she was pushed over the edge, her body writhing beneath him. Not until he had come down from his own high, emptying himself inside her, did he finally become of the world around him once again.

It was the little things he noticed first; the birdsong of the forest, uninterrupted by their own vocalisations; the breeze across his hot, damp skin, cooling the combination of water and sweat on his body; the wooden crates beneath him, hurting his knees which had suffered friction burn in the heat of the moment. The little things brought him back to reality, and he rolled off her before she could order him to.

"I trust that satisfies?" he asked, taking a deep breath.

"It will do... for now," she said, pushing herself off the cart and onto the floor. Bare-footed and naked, she set off back to the river.

"Where are you going?"

"To the river, for a swim and a wash. No point putting clean clothes on a dirty body," she smiled.

He grunted, and didn't bother washing. His own clothes were already dirty with mud and river-water. The way he saw it, there wasn't any point in putting dirty clothes on a clean body.

o - o - o - o - o

It was not the last time that he worked with Malin. Over the next year and a half they did several jobs together, all for the same older man, always under the same terms. Sometimes the items they smuggled were boxed in small containers, and sometimes they were housed in large ones. Neither of them knew what they were carrying, and neither particularly cared, as long as their employer kept paying well.

They struck up a truce of sorts. She smuggled the merchandise from over the border and into Port Llast. He took them from Port Llast to Neverwinter. He never went with her to Luskan, she never went with him to Neverwinter. Port Llast became the only place that they ever met, a neutral meeting grounds, of sorts. Their meetings were almost always short. Sometimes they spent the night in one of the Alliance Arm's rooms, sometimes they didn't.

From Malin he learnt the difference between women and whores. Women tended to get upset if you left them unsatisfied. Whores weren't usually paid to care. He wasn't really sure which he preferred.

One fine spring morning almost two years after he had run escaped from his Luskan mentors, he found himself looking once again at the city of Neverwinter. It had taken him a day to get here from Port Llast, and he was looking forward to making his delivery then getting back to the Flagon, for food, ale and a soak in the bath tub. A few hours' sleep in his bed would also be welcome; Malin had kept him up for hours, the night before last, and he hadn't been able to sleep much on the open road beneath the stars on the previous night. He never did sleep well outdoors, when he was alone. He worried too much about somebody sneaking up on him.

He walked the familiar path down to the city, going over in his mind all of the new equipment he would buy with his latest payment. Whatever he was carrying now was small enough to fit into his backpack. That was good. The guards were less likely to search him; they had become increasingly paranoid of late. The Bloodsailors were starting to cause trouble in the Docks, and the guards had been warned to keep a lookout for anybody entering the city who appeared to be connected with the pirates.

When he reached the gate, he was surprised to find it barred. And instead of just two guards outside it, there were six, each of them with a pike in his hands and a sword on his hip. Their faces were grim, and he could tell that something dire had happened. Had the Bloodsailors finally declared war on the city? Had somebody assassinated Lord Nasher? Had one of the Many-Starred Cloaks' magical experiments gone awry?

"I'm sorry, we can't allow you to enter Neverwinter at present," said one of the guards; a sergeant, judging by the rank on his sleeve and collar.

"Why? What's going on?" he asked, hefting his pack on his back, just another weary traveller looking for a place to stay.

"There's a sickness going around within the city. Some are already calling it a plague... The Wailing Death, they say. Leaves its victims screaming in agony, turning their insides to liquid, melting them from the inside out."

"But I've only been gone for four days! How quickly can this have spread?"

"_Very_ quickly," said the sergeant. "The Helmites are doing what they can to halt the disease, but they've advised Lord Nasher to quarantine the city. Nobody gets in or out without a letter signed by both Lord Nasher and Desther, the priest charged with curing the disease. I'm sorry, but Neverwinter's locked down. And until this plague is cured, it will stay locked down."

Bishop turned away, his mind reeling at the thought of a plague within Neverwinter. How was it even possible? The place was much cleaner than Luskan... even the Docks of Neverwinter were hygienic compared to Luskan's docks.

What would he do now? Everything he owned was in Neverwinter. His room in the Flagon, all of his clothes, his spare armour, most of his money from his last job, extra ammunition for the bow he had crafted himself from a stick of wood he had found in the Duskwood... where could he go?

There was only one place he _could_ go. He set out on the road, back the way he had just come, back to Port Llast, back to Malin. He smiled. Perhaps if he was _really_ lucky, Duncan would be a casualty of this plague, this 'wailing death'. It was something the man deserved.


	7. Companions Bishop 7

Companions

Bishop - VII

"Why do you insist on doing this?" asked Malin, her voice conveying agitation and distress.

"Because they deserve it." His words were quiet, without emotion. As he spoke, he watched the trussed man lying on the floor in front of him, watching for signs of consciousness. So far there had been none. The man's injuries were quite severe. He might never wake up.

"Gods, Bishop, why can't you just kill him and then we can leave?"

He didn't reply. This was not the first time they had fought against Luskan scouts. Nor was it the first time he had captured one of them alive. And it wasn't the first time Malin had nagged him over his... hobby, either. For almost six months they had been travelling together. For six months the Wailing Death had raged through Neverwinter, almost halving the city's population.

Four months ago, in desperation, Lord Nasher had put out a call for adventurers, to aid with finding a cure for the plague. It would have been pathetic, if so many foolish idiots hadn't volunteered to enter the plague-infested city. They were clearly suicidal. Bishop himself had absolutely no intention of returning to Neverwinter, not until every last damn cold and sniffle had been cured, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn't catch this terrible illness.

The man on the floor groaned, his eyes flickering open. Bishop smiled. The man would live, after all. At least for a little while longer, anyway. And he would get to have his fun after all, he would get to practice what the Circle had taught him. What Marcin had taught him.

"Damn your gods-cursed hide," said Malin angrily. "I'm going. Catch up to me when you're done." And with that, she stalked off into the forest, without even bothering to check if it held more Luskans. How the bloody woman had managed to survive in and around the Duskwood for so long was beyond his understanding; at times, her carelessness bordered on incompetence.

"Where'm'I?" the man on the ground slurred. Bishop didn't answer him. He simply took out his knife and began cutting the man's armour and shirt away from his body. Then he cut the man's skin, carefully, shallowly, over and over again. The screams of pain and terror were like a balm to his soul.

This man represented everything that he hated. This man was a soldier in service to a city that had stolen his life, to a land that had killed his dreams. This man, and others like him, had made him into a killer. They had turned him into somebody who took comfort in little but inflicting pain. They had made him, and now they would know the monster they had created.

The screaming man wasn't an assassin, no. He wasn't a member of the Circle. But that didn't matter. He was a Luskan. He did their bidding. He was capable of terrible things. He was capable of beating a man to death with his bare fists. He was capable of raping women, of murdering children. And worst of all, he was capable of _enjoying_ it. That was what separated him from them. Yes, he himself had killed innocents before... he had killed women. Children. But he had never beaten somebody to death... he hadn't killed a man who didn't _truly_ deserve it. He hadn't raped women. And the children he had killed... they weren't his fault. He had simply been a weapon, wielded by the hand of another. He hadn't wanted to do it. He hadn't enjoyed it. Not like this man would enjoy such things.

At last there were no more cries. He realised that he had been a little too vigorous with his cuts, at the end. He had let his anger and his emotions overwhelm him. It was a problem he had, on occasion. And because he knew that he had that problem, that meant the problem wasn't all that great after all. Having a problem and _not_ knowing that you had one... well, that _was_ a true problem.

A good torturer was supposed to remain calm, composed, detached. He wasn't supposed to let his emotions get the better of him. He wasn't supposed to give in to his feelings. Well, perhaps that simply meant that he wasn't a good torturer. But he could settle for being a bad one.

Wiping the blade of his skinning knife on the clothes of the dead man, he stood and cast his eyes on the ground for Malin's tracks. Travelling with her had brought back memories of his time with Davram, and of the lessons learnt from the man. Those lessons had been useless, in Luskan. Davram had taught him to track people and animals through the wilds, interpreting signs from broken twigs and bent blades of grass and occasional spoor. None of that was required in a city. But he was slowly starting to remember his old lessons, out here, away from civilisation. He was slowly remembering what it meant to be free and self-reliant. His confidence was growing daily, and more often than not, _he_ was the one who spotted the patrols first, _he_ was the one to bring down game for food. His skills were quickly surpassing those of Malin.

When he found the half-elf's tracks, he moved forward, walking away from the bodies without a backwards glance. He kept his eyes down, following her trail, back to the Duskwood where they could rest safely.

o - o - o - o - o

"I've been thinking of heading back to Luskan, to see if any of my contacts have a job for me," Malin said casually, a few days later.

"Why? It's not like you need money out here. We can live off the land just fine."

"Until we need to replace arrows or buy something that we can't make."

"There won't be any jobs. Not with Neverwinter quarantined."

"Neverwinter isn't the only city on the Sword Coast, you know. Sometimes I get wind of jobs going by Waterdeep or Baldurs Gate. Even some of the larger towns need smugglers and scouts."

"I don't want to go to Waterdeep or Baldurs Gate. I like it here."

"You don't have to go. But I need something more than just wandering around the Duskwood killing Luskans until Neverwinter's opened up again. I actually _like_ being around other people, sometimes. I _like_ sleeping in a warm bed and drinking elven wine and having baths with real soap, and a warm roof over my head when it rains."

"And here I thought we were having fun," he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her neck, just above her shoulder.

"_You're_ having fun," she said, pushing him away. "There's nothing fun for me in torturing Luskans. Why can't you just leave them be? It's not like they'd see you most of the time. Just... come away with me, somewhere else. Somewhere far away from Luskan."

"No. I like it here," he said stubbornly. In truth, the chance to kill Luskans was only part of the reason why he stayed. He was also acutely aware that if he didn't get back to the Flagon after Neverwinter was reopened, Duncan would quickly carry out his threat, informing Lord Nasher just who had wiped Redfallow from the maps, and writing a rather condemning letter to anybody in Luskan who might care about the deaths of several high-ranking assassins and their chief torturer.

"Gods, you're frustrating," she sighed.

He didn't bother replying. She clearly wasn't pleased with him, but he really didn't care. Their relationship was one of convenience, and though he did enjoy having sex with her - and not having to pay for said sex - it wasn't as if he had an emotional attachment to her.

A blackbird, high in the trees above their head, called out a warning, his voice shrill and high. Without a second thought, Bishop drew an arrow onto his bow, stepping back towards the largest tree he could find to take refuge behind it. Malin was only a second behind him, an arrow nocked on her own short bow as she hid behind a gorse thicket. For some moments they waited in silence, the only sound that of the blackbird's alarm. Then two squirrels dashed through the leaf-litter, jumping from the ground to the trees, scurrying up their trunks and to the safety of the canopy.

Four men stepped onto the trail from the trees beside it. Three were carrying bows, arrows ready to fly. The fourth man's bow was at its ease in his hand, and the man himself was scanning the floor.

_Bloody trackers,_ Bishop thought, preparing to loose his bowstring. Then, a fifth figure stepped onto the trail behind the others, and he almost let go of his string in shock. He recognised the fifth man. And he was no mere scout.

"Well?" the fifth man asked the tracker.

"They were here," the man replied. "See how the grass is bent at a strange angle? And the small, deeper arc?"

"I see the bloody grass, just tell me what it means."

"They were walking through here. Something spooked them and they turned and left the trail, at right-angles to the path."

"And what could have spooked them, I wonder? Are you sure these are even the same prints as the last ones you saw?"

"Positive," said the tracker.

"Well, get following. They can't be too far ahead."

Before any of the men could move, Bishop aimed his bow at one of the men with his bow drawn, sending his arrow into the man's chest. Malin's arrow followed a heartbeat later, taking out another combat-ready scout. Fire was returned; two arrows impacted the tree he was hiding behind once more, and something heavier followed it. A bolt, he knew. He had seen the fifth man carrying a crossbow. It was just a shame that they weren't inside the Duskwood... the dryads would most likely have attacked the men for damaging a tree like that.

He and Malin shot again whilst their attackers were reloading their bows, taking out the remaining scout and the tracker. That left only the fifth man, the one who wasn't at home in the forest - and knew it. The man fired one more bolt into the tree, then turned and ran.

Bishop ran after him. He couldn't let this man get away. His continued survival depended on it. As he ran, he drew an arrow onto his bow, firing it at the man, aiming low. He missed his mark, and shot again, then again. On his fourth shot he managed to hit the man in the calf, and the Luskan went tumbling to the floor with a cry of pain, banging his head on a tree trunk as he fell. Panting, Bishop caught up to him, but the man wasn't going anywhere; his leg was bleeding badly, and his head wasn't much better. Half of the skin had been ripped from his forehead on impact with the tree.

Before his captive could regain consciousness, he took a length of rope from his pack and tied the man up, ensuring that he would never be able to escape from the knots.

There was the sound of somebody crashing through the undergrowth from behind him, and Malin appeared, breathing heavily, her bow still pulled taut with an arrow on it. At the sight of the unconscious man, bound before him, she made a disgusted noise in her throat.

"I know, I know. You're leaving, and I'll catch up to you when I'm done," he said.

"Are you missing something upstairs?" she asked bitterly. "In case you didn't hear, those men were tracking us. Hunting us. They're not going to leave us alone. Ever. We have to leave here, to go somewhere else. Somewhere that they'll never find us."

"Maybe not. Let me see what I can get out of this one. I can find out if they're really after us, and why. Then we'll know if it's safe to stay."

"Gah! Just... whatever. I'm heading back to camp in the Duskwood. I've had enough of Luskans."

She stormed off, and he dismissed her from his thoughts. Right now, she wasn't important. The man on the ground was important. He crouched down beside his unconscious victim, reaching out for the arrow with both hands. He broke it in two at the feathered end; the arrow had gone completely through his leg, piercing his muscle. It would need to continue its journey to come out.

He grabbed hold of the tipped end and pulled the arrow through the wound. The man's body convulsed, but he did not wake. Rooting inside his pack, Bishop took out a large bandage and dressed the man's leg, fastening the bandage tight. Though the arrow had not gone through an artery - the man would be dead by now, if it had - the wound still bled profusely. The bandage would only stem the flow of blood partially. He had dressed it mainly to keep the wound clean, to prevent it from being exposed to dirt and air.

There was nothing he could do for the man's head injury. It bled a lot, as head wounds were wont to do, but it wasn't deep. At best, the man would wake up with a concussion. At worst, it would be a compression. In which case he wouldn't live for very long. Prepared to see it out until the very end, Bishop settled down to wait.

o - o - o - o - o

It was a couple of hours before the man began to stir. At first his eyes flickered open, then closed immediately again when the harsh daylight fell into his eyes. Eventually he was able to open his eyes fully, and at last he managed to pull himself into a sitting position.

"Well, if it isn't my old friend Bishop," said Baker, giving him a disarming, though somewhat pained, smile.

"Don't bother looking for your knives. I took them from you. The area of ground where you're sitting is devoid of sharp, opportune stones. There is no broken glass, no sharp metal, nothing on which you might cut your ropes and free yourself.

"Always were top of the class in tying and knots, weren't you?"

"You're hunting me."

"Of course. Did you think you could just kill a dozen scouts and get away with it? Actually, I take that back. You could have got away with killing them. But torturing them? You might as well have written a note and signed it yourself. Some of the techniques you used were taught only to Marcin's students. And since we were pretty sure he'd died in that bloody village of yours, we eventually put two and two together and made you our prime suspect. I'm glad to see you're alive, by the way. I thought you'd perished along with your overseers."

"They didn't perish. I killed them. I set them up and they all died. I got away from them. Now, I'm free."

"You know, if I'd gotten free of them, I'd've settled down somewhere far away from here. I would have found myself a nice comely woman, probably a virgin, made her my wife, and had two kids by now. I wouldn't have come back to kill scouts and soldiers. Maybe you're not as free as you think."

"I am. And you can be too. Whoever comes next will find the bodies of the scouts. We can make it look like I killed you and disposed of you somewhere. You don't have to be a killer anymore. You don't have to be what they made you."

"Just like you're no longer what they made you?"

"That's right."

"If you're not who they made you anymore, then why am I trussed up like an autumn hog? All I'm missing is the bloody apple in my mouth. If you're not who they made you, why are you back here, killing people? If you're not who they made you, why do you torture them?"

"Shut up," he said, standing and pacing the forest floor. He didn't want to hear Baker's words. He didn't want to listen to his friend anymore. Baker obviously didn't know what he was talking about.

"Face it, Bishop. Who you were, what you were, your life before... it's all gone. All that's left is who they made you, and you will be that person until the day that you die."

"No. I'm better than that. I don't kill because people command me. If I kill, it's because I choose to. I won't be ordered to do anything ever again."

"Tell me something. The girl you've picked up, the one you're travelling with. Does she know about all of this? Does she know who you are? I mean _really_ who you are? I can see by your face that she doesn't. What do you think she'll do when she finds out? Do you think she'll give you a pat on the back and say 'there there, Bishop, it wasn't your fault. Don't worry about the countless innocent people you've murdered'? No. She'll pull back in disgust."

As Baker spoke, Bishop could almost _see_ it happening, in his mind. Yes, Malin would pull away from him, she would recoil in fear, just as Rosie had. Rosie, his wonderful friend... she was dead because of him. And Malin would die because of him, too. Or maybe not. He could simply let her go. She already wanted to leave. All he needed to do was tell her that Luskans were hunting them, and she'd be off like a shot. Then he could get back to business.

"People like you and I, Bishop, we can't just give it all up. We can't pretend that we're just one of the people. We can't fit in. There is no place for us in society. We will always be killers. We will always be cats amongst the pigeons. Come back with me, Bishop. Come back, be one of us again. I'll help you. We can convince the Circle that you're not a traitor. We can go back to the way things were. Just like old times. The two of us having fun."

"You can never go back. Never. Once something's gone, it's gone forever. That's something that I've learnt the hard way."

"But-"

"Damn it, Baker, I _died_ to be free. I bought my freedom with my life, and I'd sooner die than go back there. No more cages for me. No more leashes, no more chains, no more being punished for not pleasing my 'masters' like some cowering dog. I'm my own man, now."

"What you see as freedom for yourself, I see as a waste of potential. You sold your soul a long time ago, Bishop. Don't make that for nothing. Don't give it all up now."

"I don't want to kill you," he said, ignoring his friend's words. "I offer you again the chance to be free. Come with me. We'll go somewhere where they've never even heard of Luskan or the Circle. You owe them nothing. They stole your life, just like they stole mine."

"They made me what I am. I will be that person until I die. For me, there is no confusion, no doubt. I know who I am, what I am, and where I'm going. I will never be lost. Can you say the same?"

"I'm sorry, Baker," he said, placing an arrow onto his bow and raising it, aiming it at the man's head.

"I forgive you."

"I don't need your forgiveness!" he hissed, anger gripping his heart.

"Then why are you out here? What are you looking for? Why do you torture yourself more harshly than any of the men you have tortured to death?"

"I don't. I'm not torturing myself. I'm living."

"If this is life, I want no part of it. I hope you learn to forgive yourself one day, Bishop. I don't think anybody else will."

He released his bowstring, and Baker's body slumped back against the tree trunk, an arrow piercing his left eye. It was the quickest end Bishop could provide for his friend.

He hadn't wanted it to end like this. He had truly wanted Baker to accept the freedom offered to him. But that was the difference between them; Bishop had seen the Circle for the cage that it was. Baker hadn't been able to see through the illusion. He'd been blinded by the gold, the women, the prestige, the power. He liked what he was. He liked being an assassin. He liked being feared. Had he given it up, he would have been nothing, in his own eyes. And for Baker, being nothing was worse than being dead.

This time, Bishop didn't leave immediately. Instead, he sat beside his friend until it was dark. He sat beside the body as it slowly grew cold and stiff, and tried to remember the boy that Baker had been.

o - o - o - o - o

When he returned to their camp in the Duskwood, he found half of Malin's belongings packed away. She didn't greet him as he entered the clearing and sat down beside the fire to take some of the pheasant that was slowly roasting over it.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked at last to break the silence.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"You have to make a choice. If you want us to stay together, you have to stop this. You have to stop torturing Luskans. I won't put up with it anymore."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. If you love me, and want to be with me, you'll stop it. You'll leave here with me." Though her face was firm, her eyes cold, he could hear the slight quaver in her voice that betrayed her fear and sadness.

"I don't love you," he said harshly. "And I don't want to be with you. So you can take your emotional blackmail and use it on the next fool to spend a night in your bed. Maybe he'll fall for it." Who did she think she was? Talking about love like she thought he was some star-eyed sap. She had no right to speak of love; after all, if she loved him, she wouldn't try to change him. She'd accept him for who he was. That was the way love was supposed to work... allegedly. And if he hadn't been willing to change himself for his best childhood friend, for the person he loved more than any other in the world, then he certainly wasn't going to change himself for this stupid, naïve slip of a girl.

"I should have known better than to expect a genuine emotion from you," she said, her eyes narrowed in anger. She shoved the rest of her belongings into her backpack, rolling up her blanket and tying a cord around it. "You are a selfish, arrogant, chauvinistic, bastard son of a..."

His mind zoned out and he let her tirade of what he was wash over him. If he didn't, if he let himself hear her words, he'd probably end up killing her. She'd be yet another corpse littering the forest floor. Yet another example of his handiwork. She might be a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch, but she didn't deserve that. Not quite.

"From now on, you're on your own," she said, standing in front of him. Her pack was on her back with her bedroll, her shortbow in her hands, quiver at her hip. "And I hope the gods curse your damned soul with an eternity of loneliness. No woman deserves to be punished with your presence."

She stalked from the clearing like an angry cat, and he didn't know it at the time, but he wouldn't see her again for five years.

Her words, her actions, just went to show how different men and women were. Knowing that he was facing his death, Baker had forgiven him. Knowing that he had spurned her affections, Malin had cursed him. Bards had the right of it; the Hells really did have no fury like a woman scorned.

It didn't matter. He was better off without her. She was a complication that he simply didn't need. And the sex had been getting a little stale recently anyway. This was just further proof that people couldn't be trusted. The only person looking out for his own interests was him. He was better off on his own.

o - o - o - o - o

He spent the next two weeks hunting and skinning. With winter approaching he would need to find a way to support himself. That meant either finding a cave somewhere to set up a semi-permanent home, or finding a way to make money to purchase a room at the Alliance Arms Inn. Either way, he'd be needing furs, to keep him warm and to sell.

He hunted a variety of animals; rabbits, foxes, fallow deer and wild pigs. The rabbits provided him with furs as well as food. Rabbit fur was good for shoe-lining, or for making clothes for babies. He would sell them easily in Port Llast. The foxes he caught exclusively for their furs; he wouldn't eat the meat of carnivores unless he was starving... he knew from trial and error that he didn't taste very nice.

Venison, on the other hand, was delicious. He cured some of the meat by smoking it, and saved some of the animal fat in new skin pouches he made from the deers' intestines. Animal fat could be used for many things, and he'd have little trouble off-loading it to candle-makers or merchants in Port Llast. The deer skins he cured and kept rolled up tightly, to preserve them until he could fashion them into warm furs for wearing or sell them. The wild pigs, though fewer in numbers than deer, were a rare treat. Their hides were thick and stiff, and could make decent leather armour in the right hands - which weren't his - whilst their meat was tender and their fat just as useful as deer fat.

Other animals fell prey to his bow too; partridges, pheasants and pigeons, mostly. Their meat often provided him with an entire meal, and he saved their feathers too. Some of them were suitable as flight-feathers for arrows he intended to fashion himself, whilst the soft down would make for good pillow stuffing.

Though he was loathe to remain in Duskwood without Malin's protective influence, he knew that venturing out into the true forest that bordered it was too dangerous, except for brief forays. The Circle knew that he was alive, now. They would be actively hunting him, and until he managed to make some traps and set some trip-wires, he would be vulnerable. So he stayed in the Duskwood, hoping that its fey guardians had grown used to his presence by now, and trusting that they would protect their forest against Luskan invaders.

He never hunted in the Duskwood itself. To do so would be suicidal. Instead, he kept his hunting excursions to the times when he left the Duskwood, venturing out only for a morning or an afternoon at a time. But after two weeks, he finally realised he'd have to go further afield. His diet consisted solely of meat, and he knew that he would slowly begin to suffer from protein starvation if he didn't find something else to eat. Luckily, it was autumn - the season of plenty. He knew that fruit trees and bushes would be thick with their harvests, and soon he would find mushrooms growing wild all over the forests.

One morning he set off with an empty pack. He thought he remembered seeing some wild apple trees, many months ago when Malin was giving him the grand tour of the woods on this side of the border, and if he could find them they would right now yield a plentiful bounty. If he wasn't able to find them again, he would no doubt come across wild raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and maybe even some bilberries. He might even get lucky and find carrots, potatoes and onions growing wild.

He trekked for half of the morning, using natural landmarks - odd-shaped trees, piles of fallen rocks, rare colorful flowers - to jog his memory for the trip back. He was certain, by now, that he could find his way back to his camp from anywhere within the forest... but it paid to be extra careful.

There was the sound of coarse male laughter, and he froze on the spot. It was some distance away, but the sound was unmistakable. Somebody else was in the forest. Moving forward cautiously, towards the sounds of the laughter, he pulled an arrow onto his bow, ready to defend himself if the need arose.

Drawing near, he heard other sounds; high-pitched yelping and whining, like the sound of a small dog screaming in pain. There was more laughter; it came from several people, he realised. Four or five of them, and all of them men. When he finally came close enough to see, he watched from the bushes, his bowstring still taut.

Four men were sitting around a campfire in the middle of a clearing. But it wasn't a natural clearing; felled trees lay around the place, having crashed violently into their neighbours. Smaller trees had been pushed over by the commotion, clods of soil clinging to their roots, exposed to the air like sun-bleached bones. Axes lay about the clearing, seemingly abandoned by their owners as they partook in a different sort of carnage.

A skinned animal lay next to the fire. At first he thought it was a dog, but when he saw its pelt, draped over a nearby felled tree, he realised it was a wolf. Beside the bloody corpse lay two dark, burnt shapes, but he couldn't even guess what they were. An instant later, he knew.

A fifth man appeared, backing out of a hole in an earthen bank that had been exposed by a fallen tree. In his hand he held a wolf-pup by the scruff of its neck. The small creature whined in fear, and the men laughed as it was placed on the floor. One of them picked up a canteen and poured water over the pup's fur, and another man grabbed a length of wood sticking out from the fire, holding it to the crying pup's fur. It ignited immediately, and the wolf-cub screamed as it ran in circles, unable to put out the flames. It wasn't water they had poured over its fur; it was alcohol, some form of strong wine or spirit that burnt intensely. At last the baby animal succumbed to its injuries. It collapsed, dead, and was thrown with the other two pups beside its skinned mother. The men laughed as the fifth man emerged from the den once more, another pup in his hand.

"Last one," he said with a grin. He lifted his other hand, to place the pup on the floor, but the animal bit into his flesh, sinking its small puppy-teeth into the threatening hand. The man gave a shout of pain, dropping the pup. "Little git. I'll teach you to bite me."

The man picked up the stick from the fire, and two other men did likewise. They began prodding the pup with the red-hot ends, whilst the other two men kicked the animal back towards the others when it tried to escape. It whined and growled in equal measures, trying desperately to snap at the sticks which caused it such pain.

Bishop raised his bow, aiming carefully at the man who had dragged the pups from the den. Compared to skirmishing with trained Luskan scouts and assassins, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. The first man fell with an arrow in his chest, and his friends stared down at him in shock. The second man fell with an arrow in his stomach, and the other three scrambled for their axes. The third man fell with an arrow through his throat, and the two remaining men looked around, trying to discern his location. The fourth man fell with an arrow in his head, piercing his brain. The last man located Bishop, moved towards his position, and was felled by an arrow to the chest. Five arrows, five dead Luskans. Not a bad day's work.

He stepped out into the clearing, surveying the remains of everything around him. It was a shame about the trees - some of them had probably been living for centuries - but the forest would reclaim this area. The death of old, greedy, light-devouring trees would make way for new, young saplings, which would then grow up to become their predecessors. It was an unending circle of life.

But there would be no life gained as far as the wolves were concerned. He spied the wolf pelt, hanging on a tree, but left it in disgust. _He_ only killed dumb animals out of necessity. _He_ killed them quickly. _He_ didn't waste his time torturing them. Not when there were so many Luskans who were _so_ much more deserving of his attention.

There was a whimper from the ground, and he found the fourth wolf-pup lying in a pool of blood; its own or its mother, he did not know. He stood over it, looking down at it. It had been kicked and poked so much that it probably wouldn't survive. The right thing to do would be to put it out of its misery. Just like he had done for Baker.

But... he felt some strange sort of kinship for the pup. He knelt down beside it and ran a hand over its body, assessing its injuries. The pup whined in pain. Internal damage, he knew. Probably irreversible.

"They did this to me too," he said aloud to the pup. "They ripped me away from my home. They beat me and poked me, and when I tried to fight them, like you did, they tried to kill me. But if you die, that means they've won, and we can't let them win, can we? I'm sure that if I can recover from what they did to me, you can recover from what they've done to you."

He unfastened his cloak and lay it over the pup, then wrapped it around the animal's body so that it could not move. He picked it up surprised by how heavy it was. The pup tried to struggle, to break away from his grip, but he held it firmly, not letting it go. Then he set off back to his camp. He hadn't found any fruit today, but he had killed five Luskan murderers and saved a life they'd wanted to extinguish.

Besides, there was always tomorrow.

o - o - o - o - o

For two days he took care of the pup as it lingered near the edge of life. He managed to get water into its mouth and down its throat, and he mashed chicken meat finely, letting the pup lick the mash from his fingers. It seemed to do it in its sleep, not opening its eyes or even giving any indication that it knew he was there.

On the third day he woke to find the pup limping around his camp, calling out for its mother with its little puppy bark. When he tried to move nearer to it, it growled and snarled at him, baring its tiny teeth. Teeth that would one day be sharp enough to rend skin and muscle, in jaws powerful enough to crush a grown man's arm, bones and all. At first he allowed the pup to growl at him, but when it came to feeding time, and the puppy wouldn't let him near to feed it, he growled back at it, much louder and deeper than it was capable of.

Intimidated by this strange, growling, two-legged wolf, the pup submitted, allowing itself to be fed but not touched. At night, it limped back to the familiar cloak. It wasn't so much the cloak itself that comforted the pup, but rather, the smell that came with it. After being wrenched from its mother and its den, after being subjected to a vicious, callous attack, this warm, soft cloak that smelled of the two-legged growling wolf was the first thing it had smelt. It was the smell that had taken the pup away from the pain and the fire. It was the smell that had fed it and watered it and communicated to it verbally in intelligible words. It was the smell of its new pack-mate.

Bishop stop thinking of the pup as 'it' when he realised that it was a male. Then it became 'he' instead, and 'he' followed Bishop everywhere, not letting him out of his sight. The pup still wouldn't let him touch him properly, but it seemed to realise that its mother and siblings were gone. It associated him with food and water, and so it followed him even when he went hunting and foraging.

For Bishop, the weeks passed quickly. In a way, the pup was like a child. The young animal reminded him of Scarlet, in a way. He watched the wolf playing, running, growling at bluebottles, snapping at them with his teeth, exploring the world around him, and he was reminded of how his sister had learnt to laugh and play and explore.

Eventually the pup began to trust him, allowing him to touch him lightly, briefly. As the trust deepened, the pup allowed him to join in with play-fighting, and endured longer touches and strokes. Some weeks later, after much patience on Bishop's behalf, the pup, which was now three times the size it had been when he'd rescued it, finally allowed him to touch him whenever he chose. It was a victory, and one that warmed his heart in a way that he had never before known. Nobody trusted him. Nobody wanted him around. Nobody cared for him. And yet here was a wild creature that let him feed it, stroke it and play games with it. The wolf trusted him, and needed him to survive.

He knew something was different when he felt subtle changes within himself. He woke up one morning and his hearing was sharper. Birdsong was now much more vibrant than it had ever been before. He could hear the soft sigh of gentle breezes whispering through the tree-tops, and nearby sounds were amplified to the point that sometimes they were painful to hear.

His sense of smell improved not long after. Now he could smell things on the breeze that he had never been able to smell before. He didn't always know what the smells meant, but he knew that they had always been there... it was just that he'd never known about them before now. His vision became sharper, shades of colours much more distinguishable than they had been. He woke up one night to find his camp silvery-grey, the trees around him and everything in his camp standing out clearly. Thinking it must be a full moon, he looked up, only to find the night black and cloudy.

The next day he went to the river, following it upstream, and the pup following him, until he came to a waterfall and its splash-pool. Bending over the pool, as far away from the fall as he could get, he looked down at his reflection. A pair of unfamiliar amber-gold eyes looked back at him. They blinked when he blinked. They winked when he winked. When he poked a finger into his own eye, his reflection poked a finger into a gold eye. He looked at the wolf, but it merely sat there laughing at him, its tongue lolling from its mouth.

When the first flakes of snow began to fall, he packed up his camp and the furs and hides he had collected and cured. He still hadn't found a cave to make a home in, so now he'd have to go back to Port Llast, to sell what he could and spend most of the winter there.

"It's time for you to go, now," he told the wolf, which couldn't really be called a pup anymore. It was as big as a shepherd dog, and beginning to lose his soft, puppy fur.

_No._

The word was so clearly formed in his mind that for a moment he could only stare in shock at the wolf. It stared back, its golden eyes on his.

Images swirled in his mind of the two of them travelling together. Another word was spoken without any words being said; _Pack_. The wolf wanted to stay with him, he realised. It thought of him as his pack, now. He thought of him as his family.

"You can't come with me. I'm going back to town, and eventually to a city. You won't like it there. You won't be allowed to bite people."

Another image came, of the two of them strolling down the Docks of Neverwinter. Then an image of the two of them hunting together in the forest. An image of the wolf sleeping at the foot of his bed. One after the other the images came, bombarding his mind.

"Alright, alright, stop it, you can come with me," he acquiesced at last. "But if you want to come along, you're going to need a name. I can't keep calling you 'wolf'... people will get suspicious."

An image formed in his mind, of a warm, dark den, and the smell of the wolf's mother. _Karnwyr_. It was the name his mother used for him, to distinguish his scent from that of the other wolf-cubs.

"Karnwyr," said Bishop aloud. The wolf barked, his mind radiating approval. "Alright then, Karnwyr. Let's go and find ourselves a place to stay for the winter."


	8. Companions Bishop 8

Companions

Bishop - VIII

Snow was falling heavily as Bishop arrived in Port Llast. Karnwyr loved it. He had never seen frozen, white fluffy water before, and he bounced up and down, snapping at snowflakes, trying to catch them in his mouth. Where the snow had begun to form small drifts, he jumped in it, rolling on his back, coating his agouti-grey fur in fine white powder.

Bishop smiled. Through the wolf's eyes he was discovering snow all over again... and wolf pups enjoyed it more than people did. But it wasn't just the snow he discovered anew; he also learnt a lot more about Port Llast. Always before the town had been noisy, with its own unique aromas. Now he could have heard a pin dropping on the cobbled road a hundred yards away. Now the smells were amplified. It was almost overwhelming, and it gave him an appreciation for what the wolf was going through.

The town was quiet, which wasn't surprising given the fact that it was late night and had been snowing lightly for some hours. In the morning, the children would come out, rising with the sun to play in the fresh snow. Until then, all of the sensible people would be in their warm beds.

Reaching the Alliance Arms Inn, he opened the door and waited for the wolf to enter. But Karnwyr had never seen a building before, much less a door. He didn't know what it was, or what to do about it.

"You need to climb up these steps and enter the door. The hole," said Bishop, feeling like a fool for talking to a wolf. He was just glad there was no one around to see him.

_Show me_.

Sighing, Bishop descended the two steps to the floor, then climbed them again and entered the door.

_Show me with your mind_.

It was then he realised what Karnwyr was asking. The wolf was having problems visualising himself getting up the stairs and into the door. So Bishop closed his eyes and formed a mental image of the young wolf climbing the stairs, and a moment later Karnwyr managed to get through the door.

The common room was quiet for once. There was no sign of the ubiquitous minstrels and their lively music. There were no farmers seated with their wives at the long row of tables. There were no merchants, loudly discussing their wares. There were only a couple of patrons; travellers, he guessed by their garb. One was a dwarf, his hair and beard peppered with grey, and the other was a tall, lanky human, a kid who couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen.

Bishop had never been that young. He had always been far older than he really was. It was what killing people did to you. It was what learning how to be an assassin did to you. It took your youth and stole what little innocence you had. It left you an empty, aged husk. He couldn't even recall his own age anymore. Twenty-three, maybe. Perhaps twenty-four. He'd stopped counting after leaving Luskan. It wasn't something that really mattered, anyway.

Falgor was behind the bar, tending to his customers as usual. When he caught sight of Bishop, his eyes widened in surprise.

"Well, here's a face I thought I'd never see again. Gods, man, what happened to your eyes?"

"I don't know. Do you have any rooms spare?"

"Are you kidding me? It's winter. Nobody travels through Port Llast in winter. Not if they've got their heads screwed on right, anyway." The barkeeper purposely didn't look at the two patrons. "I've got any room you like."

"I'll take one for tonight. I've no money yet, but I've got some stuff to sell tomorrow," he said, gesturing at the rolls of furs and hides that he placed on the floor beside the bar.

"Good enough for me. Where's that friend of yours. Malin?"

"She decided to travel for a while. See more of the realms. Has there been any news from Neverwinter recently?"

"Yep, heard three days ago that the war's over."

"War? What war?"

"The one with Luskan."

"There's been a war with Luskan?" he asked in shock. Just how long had he been gone for?

"Have you been living in a hole for the last two months? Of course there's been a war with Luskan, right on the heels of the plague, too."

"What? The plague's gone?"

"Aye. Gone since Khelben Blackstaff himself was able to fashion a cure for it. That wasn't long after they executed Fenthwick Moss for being in league with Desther. Shame about Lady Aribeth, though. She was a fine woman."

"Just... start at the beginning," he said with a sigh. "And get me a bloody drink." From the floor, Karnwyr barked; he too wanted a drink.

"What's that?" said Falgor, leaning over the bar to peer at the wolf. Karnwyr growled at him.

"He's my dog. I'll keep him out of trouble... and he's house-trained."

"Dog? Looks more like a wolf to me."

"He's a shepherd dog from the Dales. They breed them big up there, with thick fur to withstand the cold."

"Hmph. Alright. Just don't let him chew the furniture. Or my patrons," said Falgor, pulling him a pint of ale. "Now, where was I? Oh yes. The war..."

o - o - o - o - o

Though Falgor had told him how badly the Luskans had hit Neverwinter, Bishop wasn't expecting the level of devastation that he saw now, looking down at the city from his vantage point on a small nearby hill. True to their nautical nature, the Luskans had come by sea. The first wave of invaders had been repelled by Neverwinter's forces. But then Luskan had landed its troops just north of the city, and their army had marched at the same time as a larger fleet attacked the open port. It hadn't been so much a war as a siege.

The only reason that Neverwinter was still standing, even in its ruined state, was because help had come from an unlikely source. The city's criminal element had risen up, taking up arms in an attempt to repel the invaders, routing them out of the city where they had managed to take hold. Though there were many armies of small gangs of Neverwinter criminals, the majority of them were led by the Shadow Thieves, determined to keep their strangle-hold on the Docks district. The Thieves had taken heavy losses for their actions.

The Watch and the Guard had been practically decimated. Only the presence of Greycloaks, their numbers swollen with farmers and commoners determined to 'do their bit' for the war effort, had prevented the city from descending into total anarchy.

Bishop knew that this was the best chance to escape. He could leave Neverwinter now and never look back. The rulers of Neverwinter would be far too busy to pursue him for a long, long time. And since Luskan's army and navy had been effectively crippled by their attack on their neighbour, it was unlikely that they would bother trying to catch him now.

But where could he go? It was winter. He had very little food and no shelter. It was snowing, now, but soon the temperatures would drop rapidly, hailing blizzards and storms that could kill somebody who was unprepared for them. Besides, Karnwyr needed somewhere warm to stay. He was still young, and couldn't survive without shelter and constant food. With winter coming in, hunting would be difficult. Foraging would be impossible.

His mind made up, he set off down the road, towards Neverwinter's walls. There were no guards. No doubt there weren't enough people left to spare for guarding gates. There would undoubtedly be sentries, posted in high places to watch for possible encroaching armies, but until they saw something more dangerous than a lone man and a scrawny wolf-cub, they wouldn't act.

Though the war had only been over for a week, it was obvious that efforts were underway to rebuild the city. Even in the Docks, men worked tirelessly to demolish unsafe buildings, whilst engineers worked on laying foundations for new buildings to replace them. The docks themselves, the ancient wooden structures, had been completely destroyed by fire. Huge war ships, belonging to both Luskan and Neverwinter, lay half-submerged out in the bay. The fires that had burnt out so many hulls had long gone out, leaving only the bones of the ships protruding above the water. Further away, merchant boats, protected by war ships flying the flag of the Lords' Alliance, were moored at sea, waiting for the docks to be rebuilt.

When he reached the Sunken Flagon, he found the tavern with its roof burnt out and several parts of the wall destroyed. People were picking amongst the rubble, talking excitedly, their hands moving in animated gestures. At first he thought they were children. Then he realised they were gnomes, with an occasional dwarf wandering amongst them.

"Hey, you can't go in there!" said one of the gnomes as he approached the burnt-out doorway to the tavern.

"Oh yeah? Says who?" he replied.

"It's not safe! Structurally unsound! The whole thing could collapse on your head. Just imagine the concussion that would give you!"

"Where's the owner of this place?"

"Inside. He wouldn't listen, either."

All hope that Duncan had perished in the plague or the war fled his mind. Ignoring the gnome, he stepped inside the shell of the tavern to find his 'saviour'.

The Flagon didn't look any better inside than it did outside. The place had been clearly ransacked. Plates, glasses and cup were strewn across the floor, which was little more than broken mortar and rubble. The thatch roof had burnt entirely through in several places, leaving large holes open to the elements. Most of the furniture was broken, seemingly hacked to pieces in a random act of extreme violence. This was what Luskans did. They came, they stole, they destroyed and they killed. This simply further justified his killing of them. Baker had been wrong. He didn't kill Luskans because this was what they had made him; he did it because they deserved it. And if more people followed his line of thinking, there wouldn't be enough Luskans left to sail a fishing boat, much less form an army.

"Would you look at this? Those bastards even ruined the kitchen." Duncan's voice was audible through a partially ruined doorway.

"Yeah, it's a mess alright. Wish I could've been here to run my sword through the swines who ruined my kitchen." The second voice belonged to Sal, Duncan's cook, and the only Luskan who Bishop could tolerate; and only because he was the best cook in the District. There was little question of Sal's loyalty. The Flagon's cook had no love for his former homeland. Not since Luskan bandits had murdered his wife and sent him fleeing to the safety of Neverwinter.

Stepping through the rubble, Bishop passed carefully through the doorway, fearing that the simple act of moving beneath it might cause it to come crashing down on his head. But it didn't, and he found Duncan and Sal probing the rubble on the floor for anything worth salvaging. He doubted that they would find a single thing, so thorough had the invading army been in its destruction.

"Bishop!" said Duncan, surprise in his voice as he looked up and caught sight of him. "Where in the Nine Hells have you been?"

"Oh, you know, here and there," he replied. "Doing my bit for the war effort behind enemy lines."

"Hmph. Well, if you've come looking for your room, you'll find it in a bad state. Luskans torched everything they could get their hands on, and the Docks District was hit the worst. Lord Nasher's set up refugee camps in various parts of the city... I suggest you stay at one of them until the blasted engineers get around to rebuilding this place. The Flagon's hardly a high priority for them."

"Right. I'll do just that." Not if he could help it. He'd go straight to the Mask, and pay Ophala however much she wanted for a room of his own.

"Ah, there you are Duncan," said a quiet, well-spoken voice behind Bishop. He turned, and found himself looking at a dark-haired elf who stepped daintily over the rubbish, the hem of his robe held up to keep it from trailing in the dirt.

"Sand." Duncan's word sliced through the air and he narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. "And here I thought you'd bought it in the thick of the fighting. You disappeared pretty quickly when things started getting tough."

"Yes, well, Lord Nasher was in need of my... assistance."

"For four days?"

"Lord Nasher is _very_ thorough."

"Bishop, there's nothing for you to do here," said Duncan. "Get yourself off to one of the camps or something. You too, Sal. I'm sure they could use some of your cooking right about now. Sand and I need to have words."

Not inclined to spend more time than absolutely necessary in Duncan's company, Bishop left the way he had came, walking around the elf who merely stood there aloofly, as if the whole building wasn't in ruins around him. Outside the Flagon, he found the gnomes and dwarves had moved on to inspecting another building, an armourer's shop.

"Come on, pup," he called to Karnwyr, who was nosing around in a pile of rubble, trying to dig down into the loose dirt. "Let's go and look up an old friend."

o - o - o - o - o

When Duncan had said that the Docks District had been the worst hit, he had not been exaggerating; but it was not by a very large factor, either. Bodies had been piled up beside Dolphin Bridge, which itself was remarkably intact to say that the city had been sieged. The bodies themselves were a fresh pile. Little things gave it away. There were no flies gathered around them yet. The corpses did not smell of rot and decay. And older, still-burning piles of corpses smouldered beside them. It wasn't a dignified way to dispose of the dead, but it was the most practical. Decomposing bodies were a terrible hazard to health. Obviously, the overseers of the clean-up operation had their heads screwed on enough to know that.

Karnwyr did not like the smell of the dead, and as they passed the pile, Bishop, too, wrinkled his nose in disgust. But not just at the scent of death that he picked up, amplified by Karnwyr's nose; the bodies of invading Luskans had been indiscriminately piled with those of Neverwinter's dead. It seemed that the dead would burn together, regardless of whether they were invaders, defenders, or innocent folk caught between the hammer and the anvil.

The cries of the hungry, the cold and the injured filled the afternoon air. He ignored them. This was their own fault, their own mess. They had been complacent about Luskan. This was all their fault. It was their fault he had been taken from his home. It was their fault that orcs had invaded Redfallow and slain Rosie's family and his sister. It was their fault that Luskan had invaded their city. And if not theirs, then it was their leader's, and now they were paying the price. Perhaps in future they would not underestimate Luskan's thirst for murder and destruction.

Though the city core had been spared the worst of the plague, it had been hit almost as hard as the Docks by the invading army, which had sailed up the river that cut the city cleanly in half. Here, houses and businesses stood in various states of destruction; unstable tiles and slates slid from rooves as their owners carefully picked their way amongst the rubble, searching for possessions. The gnomes and dwarves were all over the place, poking, prodding, examining every wall of every structure, trying to salvage what they could.

It didn't take him long to find the Mask. Or, at least, what was left of it. And what was left of it wasn't work speaking of. Several gnomes were crawling all over the ruins of the once proud two-storey building, now reduced to a pile of bricks and timber. Karnwyr didn't understand the destruction; he began digging in the pliable rubble whilst Bishop found the least insane-looking gnome of the bunch.

"What happened to the Moonstone Mask?" he asked curtly.

"Moonstone mask? Moonstone mask?" said the gnome, a confused look on his face. "Why, I'm afraid I don't know of any masks made of moonstones."

"I found a jade monkey," said another gnome. "Does that help?"

"E's talkin' about this building, ye bloody nitwits," growled a nearby dwarf at the gnomes. "Same thing happened to this place as happened to the rest of the city. Luskans tore it down." The dwarf spat on the floor at the mention of Luskan.

"Where's Ophala?" he asked. "The woman who owns... owned... this building."

"Ach, gone to pick herself a plot in the Merchant District, laddie. Think she's got her eye on a prime piece of land there."

"We have a Merchant District?"

"Not yet, but ye will do. Lord Nasher's got grand plans for rebuilding Neverwinter. New Districts to make it safer, new shops, even a partially new Academy. These are exciting times to be an engineer."

"And, presumably, an undertaker."

"Aye, that too. Anyway, Ophala left some time ago. You'll find her somewhere between what's left of the Beggar's Nest and Blacklake District."

Bishop left the engineers to their work, and Karnwyr loped along beside him. In just a few months, everything he had come to know had been ripped away from him... again. Luskans had come and ruined things for him... again. But now he knew better. Now he had nothing left, no emotional attachments... except Karnwyr. Now there was nothing left for them to take.

o - o - o - o - o

"Tell me about this job," said Bishop, leaning back in his chair. He was in one of Ophala's 'private' rooms. It wasn't the same room that he had taken his first job in, but it was very similar. It was small, dark and screened. The years had been good to Ophala and the Mask. Over the past few years, since the Mask had been rebuilt, business was booming. It wasn't the same, no; the patrons were less questionable than they used to be. The Moonstone Mask was no longer a place of ill-repute, where criminals did business. At least, not openly.

There was a shallow, wheezy breath from behind the screen, and the man behind it blew his nose noisily. Bishop fought back a snarl; he hated being around sick people. He'd already pegged his contact as one of those tall, lanky types with a perpetually runny nose and red-rimmed eyes. He hated people like that. People who were supposedly of 'good breeding' - whatever that meant - who fell over at the slightest touch, and took to their beds at the first hint of a sniffle. But money was money, and the past month had been _very_ dry for him. Even Duncan was harassing him about payment for his food.

"It's relatively simple," said the unseen man in a nasally voice tinged by a foreign accent. "You see, I am betrothed, but my beloved has been taken by madness. On the night before our wedding was due to take place, she fled Amn without an explanation. I've been following her for a month, as she's made her way north, and this is the closest I have come to her."

"So now you want me to track her down so you can get your explanation for her ditching you," he said. The man was obviously a fool. Anybody who let themselves be fooled by love, who let themselves be made weak and dependant on another person, was an idiot. Still, money was money...

"An explanation?" the man said, apparently offended. "We're way beyond explanations now. No, what I want is for you to find her so that I can take her back and force her go through with the marriage. I paid her family a lot of money for her. They're little more than peasants, really, but Estelle has the face of a goddess, so I was willing to put up with the taunts of my peers. But now she has humiliated me in front of my friends, family and business contacts. She's made me look weak. I have to show that _nobody_ crosses me and gets away with it. If you have to beat her a little to make her see sense, then all the better. Cow her into submission and all that."

"What's the fee?"

"Two hundred gold. Half up front, the rest on delivery."

"How do you know she was even here?"

"She has a friend here in Neverwinter, a childhood sweetheart who she used to correspond with. I found letters from him, encouraging her to come here, so that he could use his influence to hide her. For a couple of days he didn't tell me anything, swore to the gods that he'd never even heard of Estelle, that I had the wrong man. Then I offered to pay him a lot of money, and he told me exactly where she went and when she left. He betrayed her for gold. Proof that even love can be bought, for the right price. So, what do you say? Will you do it?"

"I'll need something of hers. A scarf or a glove or a coat. Something material."

"Why?" said the man, suspicion in his voice.

"It'll help to track her."

"None of the other trackers I've hired have made such strange requests."

"And look at how well they did."

"Hmph. I see your point. Very well. I'll bring you something of hers in the morning. We'll set off at dawn."

"We?"

"I am, of course, coming with you. If this is to be the time when Estelle is finally caught, I'm going to be there, to see the look on her face when she finally realises her life of freedom is over. I want her to see me and despair."

"Alright. But I don't want you getting in my way. If I say something, you do it, no questions asked."

"Yes, yes. Out there in the wilds, you know best. You just get me Estelle, and I'll follow."

"I'll see you outside at dawn, then," said Bishop, pushing his chair back and standing up. He left the man and the room, and walked back through the Mask. At the counter, a long-legged tiefling woman with a swishing tail was talking quietly with Ophala. A purse exchanged hands, but he ignored them. Ophala had made it quite clear that the rest of her business was no concern of his, and that was the way he preferred it. No strings and no attachments. He could move on whenever he wanted. Well, if it wasn't for Duncan and his blackmailing. But Duncan wouldn't be around forever. One day he would slip up and make a mistake. And when he did, Bishop would finally be free.

o - o - o - o - o

Bishop knelt down on the ground and took his knife from his belt. Using the tip, he lifted damp, mulchy leaves from the floor, and, in the fading light of the evening, peered at the tracks beneath them. He snarled, not even bothering to hide his anger. The tracks confirmed what Karnwyr had been smelling since yesterday; that the girl wasn't alone. Judging by the size and depth of the tracks, she had two men with her. Large men who knew how to move quickly through the wilds.

"What is it?" asked the man who had given the alias of 'Rigby'. The fool peered down at the floor, his long hair, partially coming out of its binding, flopping over his eyes. Rigby was nothing more than a middle-aged fop, and Bishop's initial estimate of him had not been far wrong. He clearly had little or no experience of life away from a city. He was out here, carting around a huge pack that only served to slow him down, sweating like crazy, and wearing a sword that he obviously didn't have the first clue how to use.

"She's not alone. That's what."

"Oh, those are just her guards. Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" he growled, standing and whirling around to face Rigby. The man took a tentative step back. "You didn't tell me that she has protection. Your fee just went up to five hundred. That's an extra three hundred gold... one hundred and fifty each for the men I'm going to have to kill. Half of it up front now."

"But we had an agreem-"

Bishop pushed Rigby backwards, pinning him against a tree with an arm to his throat. Panic crossed the man's face, fear flashing in his eyes. He tried to swallow, but Bishop's arm beneath his adam's apple prevented him from doing so.

"Then how about I leave you here in the damned forest and go back to Neverwinter? You can finish the job by yourself."

"No, no, wait! Okay, I'll give you the additional money," said Rigby, sweating even more profusely than usual. He reached down for his pocket and withdrew a purse, counting out gold, and eventually silvers, until he had no money left. It was just shy of a hundred and fifty, Bishop knew, but it would have to do for now.

"Good." He removed his arm from the man's throat and snatched the purse from the man's hand. "This explains why she's been able to keep ahead of us. If I'd known she had help, I would have pushed on faster. As it is, we'll have to make camp here for tonight and hope we can make up for lost time tomorrow. Now, make yourself useful for once and go collect some firewood."

"In Amn, I had servants fetch my firewood," said Rigby, moving off a little and making a half-hearted attempt at searching the ground for fallen timber.

"Good for you."

"I wish I had my servants here with me now. And my bath, and my bed. It's frightfully hot out here."

"That's what you get for travelling the wilds during harvest season. Next time you find some girl you want to marry, arrange it for spring, not summer. That way, when she runs, you'll have a nice cool season to find her."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand." Rigby sniffed, then took out a handkerchief and sneezed noisily into it. "A man like you has probably never found somebody worth marrying. I wouldn't expect you to understand love, or what I'm going through."

"You're not out here for love," he snorted as he began assembling his tent. "You're out here for revenge. You've been harping on for almost two weeks now about how much shame this girl's brought you and how you're going to make her pay and show everybody that you mean business. If you loved her, you wouldn't care about any of that. You'd just give it all up and run with her. The fact that you care more about your appearance than making her happy just shows how little you actually care for her."

"See, I told you you wouldn't understand."

"Right. I'm the clueless one."

Bishop ignored the man as he set off on a long tirade about how wronged he had been, and how misunderstood he was. It had been like this every night for the past two weeks; they stopped, made camp, and Rigby began ranting. The man liked the sound of his own voice _far_ too much. Sometimes, it was all Bishop could do to stop himself putting an arrow through the idiot's head. No wonder his 'beloved' had run away. The woman obviously possessed a mote of common sense - more than he himself possessed, for being desperate enough to take this job in the first place.

He moved with the ease of familiarity. He didn't have to think about assembling his tent. He didn't have to think about building a fire, or skinning the rabbit he had shot earlier, or spitting it over the fire while Karnwyr settled down with a rabbit of his own. The wolf had done a good job so far, tracking the girl by scent. It would only be another day, or perhaps two, before they caught up with her. And then Bishop could get the rest of his payment, return to Neverwinter to pay off his debts, and begin the cycle all over again. It wasn't the most interesting way of making a living, but it sure as hell beat working for Luskan. It sure as hell beat being chained. Yes, another day or two, and this awful job would finally be over.

o - o - o - o - o

The breeze picked up, the wind rustling the leaves of the beech trees. In the canopy, small birds called out to each other. Families of starlings flitted between the trees, the younger members of the group making short, practice flights in preparation for their migration east, away from the coast and the heavy snows that the trade-winds would bring. Here and there, leaves were slowly losing their colour. Not many right now, but soon they would all be warm shades of golden brown. Soon they would all be withering and falling from their parent trees, carpeting the ground in a blanket of crisp leaf-litter.

This was the harvest season. The season of plenty... if one knew where to look. Finding food wasn't hard. Wild fruit-bearing trees were heavy with apples and pears, plucked easily or knocked down with a well-aimed stone. Berry bushes grew in proliferation wherever a gap in the forest canopy allowed a little light to penetrate to ground level. Raspberries and blackberries could be found in and around forests. In the open grasslands, blueberries and blackcurrants grew in thick bushes. In swampier grounds were bilberries, small and tart and better cooked in pies than eaten raw.

Vegetables were also plentiful; wild onions, carrots, potatoes and cabbages could be found growing beside radishes, rocket leaves and mustard. In the dark places of the forests and fens, where there was dampness and heat but little light to speak of, edible mushrooms grew beside their more circumspect brothers. Only the learned or the foolish picked and ate mushrooms; the former because they could distinguish between the families, the latter because they could not. And as if Silvanus was not giving enough, he also ensured that the trees gave up their seeds as sustenance. Hazels and pine nuts were the most common, but chestnuts, when they could be found, were a rare treat.

For flavouring, forests and grasslands provided an abundance of herbs. Coltsfoot, a useful alternative to salt, grew in patches, along with more traditional herbs like thyme and marjoram. Parsley and sage were field-herbs, and the perennial rosemary, as high as a grown man's thigh, was one of the commonest herbs around. Even nettles could be cooked into soup, and tasted especially nice when mixed with bay leaves. Spices, like cinnamon and cloves, could be found with little effort. And for anybody who wanted something sweeter, tapping a maple tree provided ample syrup for those not willing to brave bee-hives before their occupants fell into hibernation.

The plants that could not be eaten had other uses. Foxglove, laburnum, nightshade, ivy, ergot, willow, and many varieties of toadstools, all had medicinal... or poisonous... properties. A person with enough knowledge could live off the land for a long time, provided he was able to store enough to see him through the winter. People, like squirrels, hoarded, preparing for harsher times. Other animals, those like the bears that could not store food, gorged during the harvest season and slept through the harsher weather, trusting to their bulk to keep them alive until the spring.

Crouching behind a gorse bush, Bishop inhaled deeply. He ignored the scents of nature; the smell of ripe fruits, of herbs crushed underfoot, of dampness and dew where the ground was soaked from the previous night's downpour. He ignored the scents of deer musk, of the skunk that had passed this way in the earlier hours of the morning, of the rotting flesh of a partially-eaten wildcat's kill suspended in the trees above him. Instead, he concentrated on something much fainter; the smell of sweet perfume, belonging to the girl, and that of human sweat, belonging to her guards.

"What is it?" said Rigby. "Do you see something?"

"Be quiet, fool," Bishop hissed. "They're close."

"What? How can you tell?"

"I can smell them."

"Remember, you're not to shoot Estelle! I can't marry a cripple, or somebody disfigured by an arrow."

"Don't worry, I never miss what I aim for," he said. _Never._ "Now stay here and be quiet."

His bow held ready to draw and release, he moved forward, still crouched. The guards weren't bad, for men of the city. They knew how to cover their tracks and lay a false trail, which was probably how they'd evaded previous trackers. One particularly cunning trick they'd tried was splitting up, one man carrying the girl, another carrying a heavy stone or log, so that the tread of both men's tracks was deeper, and it was visually impossible to know which was carrying the girl and which the decoy. But of course, he was tracking by scent, not by sight, and now that he was close enough, he could track by sound, too.

A few hundred yards away, Karnwyr was lying in wait beneath a blackberry bush, hidden behind a stand of nettles. His dark grey coat was good camouflage, and the darker markings on his face broke up the outline of his head. The wolf was simply watching, waiting, and for a few moments, Bishop let the wolf's senses overlay his. He saw them, then, hurrying through the undergrowth. The girl was young, younger even than he. Far too young to be marrying a fop like Rigby. And she wasn't bad looking, either. Not really his taste, with her long blonde hair, blue-green eyes and small, full, pouting mouth, but he wouldn't have turned her down.

He disengaged his mind from Karnwyr's, and set off, loping silently through the forest. He'd always been good at moving quietly, ever since Davram had started teaching him. His time in Luskan had improved his skills, and now his observation of Karnwyr had honed them even more finely. The wolf couldn't move with the cat-like grace of a panther or lynx, no, but he knew how and where to put his feet to avoid making noise, how to stalk quietly before rushing forward to kill. In part, Karnwyr's hunting skills had been changed by his lone nature. In the wild, wolves lived in packs, and worked together to chase their pray to exhaustion, running for miles at a time. Karnwyr had no pack-mates to take up the chase when he began to tire, and his hunting methods had become more stealthy because of his solitude.

When Bishop was within sight of his targets, he drew back his bow. He'd intended for the first kill to be as clean as possible. Unfortunately, the gods had other plans. As he drew his bow, he startled a wood pigeon in the tree above him. The bird took loudly to the air, flapping its wings and screeching in warning. The girl's guards reacted immediately, one of them pulling her behind a tree trunk whilst the second took cover and aimed his crossbow. Bishop swore in his head, and released the arrow, knowing before it even left its bow that it wouldn't hit. At the same time he made a dive to cover behind the tree from where the pigeon had flown, and a crossbow bolt flew threw the air where he had been standing.

The guard beside the girl dragged her forward, running away. That was smart. They had to know that a moving target was harder to hit than a stationary one, and that a long, drawn-out exchange of fire was not in their best interest.

"Hurry, you fool!" Rigby shouted, stand up from his hiding place and pointing to the girl and her guard. "They're getting away!"

It was the last thing he ever said. The second guard had already reloaded his crossbow and cranked back the string, and now he let the bolt fly. It hit Rigby square in the chest, and the man was thrown backwards by the force of the blow. Bishop swore again, and quietly moved back to another tree whilst the guard's attention was taken up by Rigby. Another bolt came flying at him, and he was forced to drop back even further. The guards seemed to be firing in tandem, now, one after the other so that there was no chance for him to shoot while they were reloading their slower weapons. They would run out of ammunition, eventually, but as they were shooting, they were also retreating.

Karnwyr sent him a mental query. Should he attack the men? _No_, Bishop thought back. There wasn't any point, now. Rigby was dead. He was never going to get his money. The contract between them was void... though Ophala would still want her payment. Still, as far as Ophala knew, their agreed price had been two hundred, and he'd only upped it whilst on the job. She'd get her percentage of his hundred gold pieces, and he'd have his hundred and fifty to keep for himself.

He watched through Karnwyr's eyes as the two men retreated with the girl in tow, and when they were finally out of hearing range, he left his hiding place and returned to Rigby's body. He felt nothing at all for the man's death. It was the idiot's own fault. He looked down for a moment at the man's lifeless corpse. His eyes were staring blankly up into the sky, and his mouth was open, his lips spattered with blood. The bolt had gone straight through his ribs and his lungs. He'd probably drowned to death in his own blood. Hardly the best way to go, but it could have been much worse.

He bent down and checked the man's pockets for any additional money and, finding none, took the rings from his fingers and the gold pendant from his neck. They'd fetch a pretty price with the right fence. Maybe he wouldn't even have to take another job for a few weeks. Perhaps he'd simply spend all his money on whores. A different one every night, until his money ran out. Yes, that's what he'd do. Drown himself in wine and whores and try to forget about how shit his life was.

He took a long look around at the forest, then shook his head. It wasn't even like there was anywhere he could run _to_. What would be the point? It was the same wherever you went. The only people he could have been happy with, who could have brought him some peace and given his life meaning, were gone, and one of them by his hand. He just hoped that wherever Rosie and Scarlet were now, they were in a nice place. A place where they could sit by the riverbanks and make crowns out of daisy chains and be princesses in castles.

Turning, he called Karnwyr to his side, and set off back to his prison.

o - o - o - o - o

* * *

A/N: Thus ends Bishop's back-story. Thank you all so much for your reviews, which have been far more positive than I could ever have imagined. Admittedly, I did have a little inspirational help from a man named Richard Marx - I recommend you go and listen to his song 'Hazard' on youtube, because it's a song that reminds me very much of Bishop (or at least the Bishop in my story) and has become, in my mind, something of an allegory for him. Though the two stories are different, the sentiment behind them remains the same.

I will, eventually, get around to putting up some chapters of Neeshka's back-story, but right now, Life is a Circle is taking up all of my free time (and I _did_ promise I'd have it finished by the end of June).


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